Five Places Cinna Came From
by aimmyarrowshigh
Summary: Cinna did not come from the Capitol. Five paths he took out of the Districts, and why he set a nation on fire.  A series of five character exploration pieces about Cinna the Conspirator.
1. District Four: The Girl in the Water

**Author**: **aimmyarrowshigh**  
><strong>Fandom<strong>: _The Hunger Games_, Suzanne Collins  
><strong>Story Title<strong>: "Five Places Cinna Came From"  
><strong>Summary<strong>: _Cinna did not come from the Capitol. Five paths he took out of the Districts, and why he set a nation on fire._  
><strong>CharacterRelationships**: (Specific to each section; listed on those pages.) OVERALL - Cinna/Finnick, Finnick/Annie, Katniss/Peeta. Johanna. Haymitch. Beetee. Mags. President Snow.  
><strong>Rating<strong>: M  
><strong>Warnings<strong>: There are very separate, very specific trigger warnings on each District's story, so please read those if you have concerns.  
><strong>Wordcount<strong>: (total) 86,000  
><strong>Disclaimer<strong>: I only own the original characters and concepts. All settings and proprietary language are owned by the author of the work from which this is derived.  
><strong>Notes<strong>: Originally written for **panemetfabulae** for **sihaya09**. She wanted "Finnick POV pre-canon, AUs where different people died in/survived Mockingjay, or Johanna POV on how she won her games," so here are four pre-canon Finnicks and a How Johanna Won Her Games. :) I really hope you enjoy it! I would never have managed to finish this without **poppypickle**, **badguys**, **electrumqueen**, **puella_nerdii**, **glycerineclown**, **lovepollution**, **skellerbvvt**, and **rurone**.

THE STORY IS POSTED IN ITS ENTIRETY ON LIVEJOURNAL. For FFn, I will be posting it as a series of five one-shots over the next few days.

* * *

><p><strong>Author<strong>: **aimmyarrowshigh**  
><strong>Fandom<strong>: _The Hunger Games_, Suzanne Collins  
><strong>Story Title<strong>: "Five Places Cinna Came From: District Four (The Girl in the Water)"  
><strong>CharacterRelationships**: Cinna, Finnick, Annie, Mags, Cinna/Finnick, Finnick/Annie, Finnick/others.  
><strong>Rating<strong>: M  
><strong>Warnings<strong>: Spoilers for all three books (although as long as you know what Finnick does for a living and who Annie is, you're probably okay on _Mockingjay_). Violence, forced sexual slavery, emotional/sexual abuse, bad language, character death, underage sexual contact, hard drug use, natural disaster/catastrophe, mental illness. All of the usual feel-good content of Collins' Hunger Games world!  
><strong>Major trigger warnings:<strong> Underage sexual contact, mental illness, hard drug use.  
><strong>Wordcount<strong>: 86,000  
><strong>Disclaimer<strong>: I only own the original characters and concepts. All settings and proprietary language are owned by the author of the work from which this is derived.

**Five Places Cinna Came From  
><em>District Four: The Girl in the Water<em>**

**001. District Four**

The sun scorched the dry, red-brick brown dirt of the square and everyone's bare feet were shifting, trying to keep a little cooler. Everyone from District Four was uncomfortable on dry land. Leathery, golden-tan hands shaded green eyes all around the square, violent light overhead casting no shadows. The entire populace of District Four inhaled as one, wistful, as a sea-salt fresh breeze rolled in across the water, just cool enough and gentle-sweet to rustle the reddish-brown hair at the nape of everyone's necks. And then like a kiss, the breeze was gone and the heat was back, oppressive and ominous. The sun cast everything into two planes of color: gold-and-white, black-and-green. It was stark.

It was the Reaping.

Up on stage, the Capitol representative, with her jewel-inset third eye, sweated. The smallest children in the crowd hid behind their mothers' and fathers' bare, tan legs as they peered up at her in fear. They may have been safe from the Reaping for a few years yet, but the sight of her inhuman fashion sense, the great diamond-and-opal monstrosity set into her forehead just beneath the blade-sharp widow's peak, glinting off the painful sunlight like a cyclops' lidless eyeball; her fuchsia skin speckled with purpled ridges where the scarwork of two years ago – a fashion gone wrong and gone _out_– was beginning to show through; the odd way her clothing covered every inch of her skin save her face, and then even barely. Compared to all of the warm, familiar skin in the crowd, she barely looked human at all.

Out in the throng, tensions were high and so thick in the air that it was piquant with salt-sweat and worry. In the center of the crush, penned in with the rest of the candidates for the Hunger Games, Cinna Healy pressed his face into the bony hollow between his best friend's shoulder blades.

Finnick Odair sighed and reached behind him to lay a comforting hand on Cinna's side. Cinna was skinny and small and had long, delicate fingers and long, delicate eyelashes and an upturned mouth that couldn't be fierce if he tried.

Cinna also had a father who had withheld five hundred pearls from the Capitol shipments and disappeared a month before. Cinna had reason to worry at this Reaping. His thin hands came up around Finnick's waist and clutched at him like he could crawl inside and disappear.

"Heyo," Finnick said, almost laughing a little at Cinna's desperation just because the only other choice was to cry, "It'll be okay."

Across the sandy square, the girls' pen was full of tanned, sweaty, leggy girls in pale dresses all barefooted and clutching each other the way Cinna clung to Finnick. And just outside their pen, crouched down on her haunches and swirling her pale fingers through a tide pool, was Annie Cresta.

She should have been in the pen with the rest of the twelve-year-olds, her face white with terror and her hair neatly braided. Instead, Annie Cresta was bright and radiant like the inside of a conch – all pale and pink and smooth with the sea – and her brown hair was flying free in the breeze as she picked up a starfish, gentle, gentle, and shrieked a happy giggle.

Annie Cresta just wasn't right.

The year before, Cinna and Finnick were out on the water in a throwaway dinghy, just sailing to sail and feel like men and eat salty sandwiches and – well, and be _alive_.

The sky was clear and fever-bright and so blue it almost hurt to look up into it – like Finnick's eyes, not that Cinna really thought Finnick ever needed to know that – but the water was murky, yellow and gelled over with hundreds of jellyfish, dead and dying. Their filament bodies writhed and foamed against each other, sparkling and smoothing.

Cinna kept his drawing book with him, bound in rough eelskin, and squinted against the hard afternoon sun as he drew – the jellyfish with their tanglelegs and silver parachute bodies, the ramshackle row houses on the shore with lace curtains in the windows like broken teeth, the long soft curve of Finnick's side as he lay with his head on the side of the boat, shading his eyes from the sun's glare with his forearm as he stared down into the roiling water.

It was burning high noon when –

"Heyo," Finnick said, sitting up fast. "The water's red."

"It's prob'ly the jellies," Cinna said, shrugging and sketching Finnick's face in five sharp lines. Brow, left eye, right eye, mouth, jaw.

"No," Finnick argued, getting up to his knees and looking far over the side of the boat. "Under the jellies. The water's red."

Cinna looked over the side and the boat rocked far over with both of their weights pressed up against the starboard. Beneath the undulating cellophane jellies, the water burned bloody red, and below that, deep, a small white shape twisted.

"What is that?" Cinna asked, poking into the water with the end of his charcoal.

Annie Cresta's dark, bedraggled head and billowing white dress like a huge jellyfish around her tentacle legs broke through the clear-furling foam and she floated limp, a broken starfish.

_As long as they got their seafood and roe and pearls, the Capitol didn't much care what went on out in the wide vessels of District Four. District Eleven had their songs, District Three had their codes, District Four had its stories. They were ancient seafaring stories, chanteys and epic poems that the oldest, milky-eyed and bearded men aboard the boats swore up and down were once the pillars of understanding of the world. Cinna didn't know about that, but the way their voices swelled and fell as they told the stories could have convinced him._

Finnick liked the man who controlled the seas, Poseidon, who could speak to the seahorses. Bull, the old crabtrapper with only eight fingers and seven toes, said that Poseidon was not a man, he was a _god_, and that a god was a man taller than all the rest and smarter than all the rest and stronger than all the rest, who could hear any secret whispered hope of the soul and had the power to fix any problem.

As far as Cinna was concerned, that made Finnick a god.

There were goddesses also – the most beautiful, ethereal, terrifying women. Gray-eyed Athena, who sprung out of a man's head; jealous Hera, who sent crabs after the hero Hercules; sad Persephone, trapped half the year in a lake of fire where there was no water as far as the eye could see and no warm sand, no seaweed and no fish, and she made the ocean run low in her sadness.

But there was also Aphrodite, who was Cinna's favorite, because she was beautiful and born of the foam on the sea.

Cinna dropped his charcoal into the water and pressed his knuckles to his mouth.

Finnick tore his hands through his hair. "Annie! Annie Cresta! Swim, Annie!"

Annie looked over to the boat with huge, empty eyes. Finnick reached out. "Swim, Annie!"

Annie pushed timidly through the water like she'd never seen it before in her life. Her white dress billowed up and down around her pale legs and she lifted a blue jellyfish, examining it curiously.

Finnick cursed under his breath while Cinna sat motionless, useless in panic, gnawing his knuckles raw. "Annie! No! Swim!"

"Finnick Odair?" Annie asked in a little voice, looking somewhere southeast of Finnick's shoulders.

"Yes." Finnick's voice broke. "Annie, we're in the boat. Just… _swim_."

Annie's face broke into a devastating smile and she set the Man O' War gently back into the water. "Okay, Finnick Odair."

And she started to swim.

When Annie reached the side of the boat, she seemed to forget what she was doing and just smiled, moving to keep on swimming, floating atop the foam in her white dress like Aphrodite. Finnick reached down over the starboard side and grasped Annie's pale arm. "Cinna, help me!"

Cinna swallowed and reached out for Annie's arm, but when he wrapped his fingers around her wrist –

"Annie, Annie, shhhh – shhh, Annie, it's just Cinna," Finnick said as Cinna flailed backwards, pressing his fingers to his mouth again. Annie sagged against Finnick's grasp, sinking into the red ocean. "No, Annie, please – Cinna is good, just keep swimming." Finnick turned to Cinna. "It's okay, see? She just has a jelly burn on her wrist there. Come help me."

So Cinna crawled back over and grasped Annie Cresta by the elbow and helped Finnick Odair haul her into the boat. As soon as she was out of the water, her white dress dyed pink by the red ocean, the jellyfish drifted, filling her space in the water like she'd never been there.

They lay Annie out on the bottom of the dinghy and Finnick rested her head on his lap, pulling seaweed and tentacles from her hair and combing his fingers through it. Cinna crouched in the stern, picking with shaking hands through the injury kit for the salve for jelly burns.

"Annie," Finnick asked, turning her head so she'd spit out the seawater. "How did you get here?"

"I swam."

Finnick's face broke.

It was a long time before he spoke again and they just drifted, three kids in a boat.

"Annie," Finnick tried again. "What happened in the water today? Why were you swimming alone?"

Annie looked up, right into the sun. "I wasn't. I was swimming with my momma. And then the hammerhead fish came."

Finnick looked to Cinna in distress. The hammerhead fish were a legend; everyone knew that – nothing so ugly and so terrible could possibly exist unless it was a muttation, and there were no muttations in District Four's ocean.

Annie stood up in the prow on her spindly, burned legs and started twirling, rocking the boat far over and Cinna scrambled for the oars while Finnick scrambled for Annie. "The hammerhead fish came, the hammerhead fish came," she sang, twirling and twirling.

"Annie," Finnick said firmly, pulling her back down. "Annie, where is your momma?"

Annie held out the skirt of her ruined dress, the red fading into pale brown. "The hammerhead fish came." Then she smiled and reached over the side of the boat. She pulled up a starfish, a little yellow one with wriggling legs, and held it in her palm. "I like starfish."

Senilia Cresta never came back from wherever she floated in the sea, and the story of the hammerhead fish was embroidered just a little more every time it was told after. Annie Cresta just wasn't right after. First there was the pity, all of the pickled fish and salty seaweed bread left on the Crestas' doorstep. _Oh, Annie. Oh, Cyrus._

Then came the dark rumors – Senilia had been an unpopular woman, a Victor whose family had all died in a storm a few months after her Games, and that turned her hard. She had been kind to Cyrus and tolerated Mags, but no one saw affection between her and her daughter before that day out on the water. She had never been bad to Annie; Cinna knew. Annie had never come to school with bruises and the standard excuse of jelly burns or tripping on the storm grate, like a lot of the other kids who lived up the shoreline. But Senilia Cresta had always floated in silence like a broken ship's skeleton sticking out of the sharp rocks at Kraken Cove: beautiful but wearing away above the surface, and jagged wreckage beneath. Cinna had never envied Annie having to live with her mother. A few months after the incident in the water, someone started whispering that maybe Annie Cresta killed Senilia, out there on that water, she just wasn't right, but he knew that wasn't true. Annie Cresta could never kill anyone. And Senilia Cresta wasn't just anyone – she was the Victor of the 46TH Hunger Games.

But sure enough, Annie never quite came back from the red water. Sometimes Cinna wondered whether her scream when he grabbed her arm that day was the sound of some part of her soul being ripped from her body.

District Four was a superstitious district, full of ghost-old chanteys and legends and secrets, and most of them lived in the sea.

"I hope Annie's not called," Finnick muttered, just loud enough for Cinna – still clinging to his back – to hear. Jealousy and fear burned low and hot in Cinna's belly, and he was a boy on fire.

But of course, Annie Cresta, mad little Annie with her starfish and her soft songs, was not called. A big girl, Coral Flynn, was called instead, and she had the bulging calves of a trap-trawler and the wide biceps of a Career.

And then, the boys.

And of course Cinna Healy was reaped that year. Everyone knows that.

And of course, Finnick Odair volunteered in his place.

Everyone knows that, too.

When Finnick took the stage, there was a loud hush over the crowd – as there always was when someone volunteered, and Cinna was crying with his knuckles pressed against his mouth – and a loud, happy shriek made everyone jump and look over to the tide pool. Annie Cresta held a big, ugly blue starfish in her cupped palms and grinned beatifically up to Finnick on the stage, holding it out like a parting gift.

In the Justice Hall, Cinna just laid his head on Finnick's knees and cried.

"I'm gonna come back," Finnick said, oddly calm. He wove his fingers into Cinna's dark hair the same way he had Annie's on the boat that day. "Don't you fret. I'm gonna come back."

But Cinna didn't believe it.

Late that night, after the rest of District Four was holed away, pretending to be asleep even though Coral Flynn and Finnick Odair were leaving and never coming back, and again, again, they had sent their own children away to die and _no one did anything_, no one did anything, Cinna sat alone at the end of the long pier, the one that stretched so far out that even on a clear day, you couldn't see its drop from the shore.

He tucked his knees up to his chest and watched the moon jellies phosphoresce.

A wet, slimy, moving thing landed on his shoulder and Cinna flinched, looking up –

Annie Cresta knelt beside him, stroking the red starfish she'd set on his skin. She smiled at him with big, blank eyes. "I think people should wear starfish. When is Finnick coming back?"

And Cinna touched Annie Cresta's jaw gently, peeled the starfish from his skin, kissed her forehead hard, and ran home to his sketchbooks.

And he drew.

He drew Finnick in a costume of starfish, their legs netted together like they were alive and giving him armor; he drew Finnick in the rough hooked skin of the sharks and Annie's hammerhead fish; he watched the Opening Ceremonies and drew District Seven in curling three-pronged poisonous leaves and District Three in towering headdresses of coiled metal.

When Finnick got his trident, Cinna filled a sketchbook with drawings of Finnick as Poseidon.

Timid but proud, Cinna wandered his way over to the Cresta house for the first time, intent to find Annie and show her his drawings because they seemed like something she might like. Her house was set back further into the shade then most, and the sand up to her door was damp and cold.

She and her father didn't live in the Victor's Village – her mother had always hated that house – and Cyrus Cresta's cod trawler barely paid the rent on this pink-painted lean-to. The weatherbeaten front door hung open. Cinna pushed his way in and wandered across the wet wood floor on the balls of his feet.

The house was empty. The remains of a slice of green seaweed bread spread thick with gummy red roe sat on a chipped blue china plate on the table.

Cinna wandered out the back door and saw –

"Annie?"

Annie Cresta lay face-down in the openwork rope weave of a hammock strung up between two gnarled trees. She didn't move at all, and the breeze barely tickled at her hair.

"Annie Cresta, what are you doing?"

"I'm floating," Annie said in a hollow shell voice. "Just floating."

Cinna walked over to the hammock and sat down, tipping her but not toppling. "Swim, Annie Cresta. Swim."

Annie stayed dead like a log.

"I have pictures of Finnick," Cinna offered, fanning the pages of his sketchbook. "Swim for him, Annie. Swim for me."

Annie rolled over. "I saw pictures of Finnick. He was Poseidon and the water was red. I ran away because the hammerhead fish were coming. They were coming for Finnick."

Cinna touched her tangled hair. "They didn't get him, Annie."

Annie sat up. "I like starfish." She started singing a little song of nonsense words, miming the story of the starfish on the pylon that everyone learned as a baby – _up rose the tide and washed the starfish out; out came the sun and out ran the tide, and the itsy-bitsy starfish was happy when he died_– and her eyes blanked out again.

Cinna sighed and opened his sketchpad, drawing Annie pictures upon pictures of starfish and Finnick. "I know."

* * *

><p>Twenty-two long days later, Finnick caught a huge boy from District Two in his net. He smiled angelically to the cameras and shook his bronze hair out of his eyes and made the District Four sign for good luck – a three-pronged cross over his chest. Then he drew back his golden trident and with a flash of sunlight, the big boy was dead and Finnick was the youngest-ever champion of the Hunger Games. The sandy square of District Four was humid with the beginning of rain season, but it erupted in cheers for the Odair boy.<p>

Cinna wasn't there.

Cinna was in Annie Cresta's damp kitchen with his the raw skin of his fingers between his teeth to muffle himself, crying with his head on his knees. _Finnick was really coming back_.

Annie gently pet Cinna's hair like he was one of her starfish. "It's okay, Cinna. Please stop crying. I don't like it."

Cinna looked up. "You know who I am?"

Annie smiled below her big, blank eyes. "You help me. You helped Finnick save me when the hammerhead fish came. Finnick Odair is coming back and you won't be sad anymore. You draw me starfish and pretty dresses. I like starfish."

And then she was gone again, singing the song about itsy-bitsy starfish: happy when they die.

The rain was fierce and howling when the black Capitol train pulled into District Four and Finnick disembarked. Cinna stood hunched against the wind in his flapping black eelskin poncho. Most of the District would have been there, but the season was really underway and it wasn't safe for the children or the elderly to be out, and the tide and the waves were washing the stinging jellies far, far up the beach. Only Finnick's mother, a few of the hardy old-timers who'd won big on Finnick's victory, and Cinna had braved the squall.

Mags, old Mags, stepped down first and then Finnick –

He still clutched that trident. He was taller and leaner, and he looked all at once ten years older and five years younger than he had when he left six weeks before. He wore an iridescent blue-green jacket that didn't even have closures down the front, just pearl epaulets on the shoulders, and gold pants that matched his trident. It was lavish. It was garish. Cinna hated it. The tiny line of brown-bronze hair that used to snake down from Finnick's navel into his swimming shorts was gone.

Finnick's mother engulfed him in a hug like Cinna had never seen before and would never see again, and Finnick still clutched the trident at his side.

Then Finnick was standing in front of him, getting soaked in that ridiculous iridescent jacket with pearl epaulets. His eyes looked through him like Annie's; a tide pool drying out.

"Heyo," Cinna whispered.

Finnick threw his arms around Cinna's shoulders and held him tightly enough that Cinna couldn't breathe. Still, Finnick clutched the trident at his side. He pressed his mouth into the side of Cinna's face. Something was different in Finnick, and it scared Cinna – this wasn't just a jelly burn; this was something cut wrong and deep and poisoned to the bone.

"I believe Annie now," he said, his voice rasping out of a rubbed-raw throat. "The hammerhead fish came."

Cinna nodded and held Finnick tighter. "I believe you."

The next morning, Finnick Odair was standing in Cinna's kitchen, clutching a trident in one hand and a slice of seaweed bread spread with black roe in the other.

"I missed this," Finnick said with relish, lifting the bread and roe. He smiled, and it made Cinna smile back, but the grin was – it was wrong. Too many teeth. Before Finnick left, his smile was this mischievously shy thing, higher on one side than the other like he was afraid to be caught grinning. He'd had a tiny little gap between his two front teeth then. It was gone now.

"Didn't they have good food in the Capitol?" Cinna asked, eating a spoon of roe right from its jar even though his mother always flicked his ear for that.

Finnick shrugged. "It's okay. It's all just sweet." He stuffed the rest of the bread in his mouth. "Can I have more?"

Cinna looked to the heel of bread that was left. It was a Friday. There wouldn't be any bread until Monday, when he could get his tesserae, but – well, Finnick deserved the rewards from the Healy rations more than Cinna did, didn't he? It was only a weekend, Cinna could do without.

"Sure."

Finnick smiled all wrong again and took the last of the bread and ate it greedily. "They won't let me have bread."

"Who won't let you have bread?" Cinna asked, laughing. "That's ridiculous, no bread."

"They said bread makes me look fat," Finnick explained, his mouth full. "I have to look good. For the sponsors. So they said I can't have bread."

Cinna touched Finnick's arm. "But it's over. You don't need to do anything for the sponsors anymore."

Finnick's eyes shut down. "Oh… you – you're right, the – I don't need to do anything for the sponsors." Then he smiled again. "I like bread. Where's Annie?"

A stone sank in Cinna's stomach.

"C'mon, she's at her house," Cinna said, sighing and thinking maybe there were a few lemaranjas left on the tree out back that he could eat on their way. "In the hammock out back."

Finnick nodded and followed him quietly, the trident just barely cocked at his side like he was expecting an attack. It was still raining too hard for most people to be out; there would be no heroes' welcomes in District Four, not during hurricane season. Cinna paused a few times to pick up white shells that had washed far up shore.

"What are you doing?" Finnick asked finally, watching Cinna shake wet sand from a shining abalone, only a little chipped.

"Annie likes shells," Cinna said, and shrugged. "I always try to bring her something when I go over. She's just not right."

Finnick's brow furrowed and he bent to pull up a sand dollar. "Annie's fine. She just changed."

The pier creaked in the wind and Finnick jumped, the trident flashing and Cinna was suddenly overly aware that the shining golden prongs had killed eight children, ripped holes in them and made their insides bleed out, and Finnick, his Finnick, this Finnick who had come back to District Four, had smiled while he made them die. His blue-green eyes were shifting and alive again like they hadn't been since he promised Cinna he would come back.

Cinna backed away, chewing on his knuckles and staring at Finnick, at the long lines of Finnick's body and how they seemed to grow smoothly into the trident as though it were a part of him, a limb that had always been there but that Cinna had never noticed before Finnick went to the Capitol and came back.

The tension in Finnick's muscles drained and his head fell forward as he breathed, the trident falling slack at the end of his arm. Cinna stared at the knobble at the base of Finnick's neck and the way his bronze hair dusted it and the rain melted around it in little rivulets. Finnick had killed people. Eight. Finnick had killed eight people and smiled; _happy when they died_.

"It was just the pier," Cinna said finally, still staring, now at his hips. "This wind…"

"Yeah," Finnick rasped. "Yeah, the wind."

"Are you alright?"

Finnick nodded and straightened. "Yeah. I'm fine." He bent again to collect Annie's sand dollar. "Let's go."

Their trudge up the shoreline to the Crestas' pink lean-to was slower now, fighting against a howling wind and Finnick's obsessive need to examine every piece of shell or glass or weathered old wood that he saw up on the beach now. He picked up a hollow, crisp starfish and smiled.

"Annie doesn't like the dead ones," Cinna muttered, wrapping his arms around himself. "She only likes them when they're moving."

Finnick's lips moved like he was trying to form a word that never quite came out. He nodded and dropped the dead thing back into the sand.

"She'll like that bit of blue glass," Cinna said gently. He smiled to Finnick, encouraging him. "She strings them up on old fishing twine and has them hanging around her room."

Finnick's smile was thin, but at least it didn't have so many teeth this time. It was broken, but not wrong. "I bet you loved that."

Cinna gave him a lighthearted shrug. "I do like pretty things. Can't help it."

"Must be why you're friends with me," Finnick said, stooping down to sift through the heavy sand for a big, broken bit of striped nautilus shell. It had a big chip out of the horn, but its spiral was perfect. Finnick rubbed it thoughtfully, shaking out the sand.

Cinna frowned. "No."

"I'm prettier now," Finnick offered, but Cinna wondered if Finnick really cared who – if anyone – was listening. "They take you out of the Districts and they fatten you up, then send you to training and slim you down. And then the prep team burns all the hair off you and they make you new skin. And I got off easy. They gave Coral new lips and new breasts and both of the tributes from Nine got new hair. Everyone else got more than me. They just did my teeth and the hair."

"Well, that's good, isn't it?" Cinna asked, starting to walk up the beach again and hoping Finnick would follow. "You got to come home looking like yourself."

"Do I?" Finnick asked. He pinched one of his cheeks. Finnick's body was lean as ever, his bones just a shade too long and his hands and feet a size too big, and all smooth swimmer's muscles and the angles of District Four breeding and poverty. "They remake you after the Games. Take off all the scars, feed you and put drugs in you. Do I look like me?"

_No_, Cinna thought. _Your smile is all wrong and your calluses are gone and they drained the sea out of your eyes._

"_Yes_," Cinna said.

Finnick nodded and jogged up the beach to pass Cinna by a few steps, and Cinna's heart felt lighter. But then Finnick just crouched down to lift a piece of waterlogged black wood with some kind of insignia still painted on it –red and white stripes and the crisp corner of something blue with a white star on it; must've been old, those colors weren't allowed in signage now – out of the beach.

"Annie will like this," he said confidently, showing it to Cinna.

Cinna nodded and pointed to the pink house up the beach. The door was open as usual. "We're almost there."

Annie was in the kitchen today, sitting on the table and staring out the window at the rain. A plate of pale green, flecked bread and a jar of big orange salmon roe sat beside her on the table. She held a spoon in her mouth.

Cinna knocked gently on the doorframe. "Annie? It's Cinna… and Finnick."

Annie looked over her shoulder, dropped the spoon, and whooped, taking a flying leap off the table towards them. Finnick's hand tightened around the trident and Cinna steeled himself to catch Annie and get her away from him, this boy who used to be Finnick Odair, but Annie just bounced on the balls of her feet in front of him.

"Hi, Finnick!" she chirped. "Cinna drew me lots of pictures of you, so it was hardly like you were gone at all. But you were, weren't you, but now you're back. I like your trident. It makes you look like Poseidon."

Finnick nodded and his grip loosened. He looked down at Annie's wild rumple of hair and then over her shoulder, back to the table and the window streaming with rain just beyond. "Can I have some bread?"

Annie nodded. She touched his hand where it wrapped around the shaft of the golden trident and gently, gently pried his fingers loose. The weapon fell to the hard-packed floor with a thud. "I baked it myself. Cinna was here, he drew a picture of it. Didn't you, Cinna?"

Cinna stood off to the side and nodded, wondering how he could have missed Annie's watchfulness all this time. He'd been so sure that she was a seashell herself, fragile and empty, and he'd kept her company just to be around the sound of someone breathing. It wasn't that she'd been silent, exactly, and it wasn't that he'd thought she'd become slow after that day in the red ocean, but she had never said so much to him. It was just like she'd still been gone, out there in the water, and it took seeing Finnick again to bring her back.

Annie's little fingers curled around two of Cinna's and two of Finnick's and she led them over to the table, fussing over them and wringing out their wet hair and bringing over two chipped plates and two spoons. She chattered away at Finnick, who stared at the bread like it was a lifeline even though he was easily the best-fed of the three kids, but it wasn't like the empty, cold sing-song she'd used with Cinna. She told Finnick about the drawings of all the tide pool creatures that Cinna had made for her, and about how she'd finally seen a by-the-wind-sailor, such a nice blue, had he ever seen one?

"No," Finnick said, his mouth full of bread. "You see lots of things other people don't, Annie."

Annie smiled. "I'm the only one looking." Then her smile melted. She reached out and put her thin hands into Finnick's messy bronze hair, petting him as though he were a kitten. She scrambled up onto the table and perched right in front of Finnick's plate. "When are you going back?"

Finnick straightened and swallowed his lump of bread. "How did you – " he interrupted himself with a shake of the head. Annie giggled as the motion moved her arms along with it. Finnick picked at the crackled green crust on his plate. "In two weeks."

"What?" Cinna asked. "Why – why? The Victory tour isn't for months!"

Finnick rubbed one of his eyebrows thoughtfully. He worked one of his earlobes between two fingers. He'd never had these habits before the Games, and Cinna tried to remember if Finnick had been stabbed there.

"I'll tell you later." He met Cinna's eyes. "I promise."

Annie smiled at them. She kept on petting Finnick's hair like the world wasn't falling apart at the seams.

Annie normally wandered through life in a happy daze, painting her own world all in pearls and tide pools and calm-sea blue to keep away the nightmares about hammerhead fish that didn't exist but attacked from the deep. Cinna had spent every day for the last six weeks with the girl, and she'd never been so _present_as she was now, hovering on the table in a pale yellow dress with her hands in Finnick's hair and a smile on her lips. Her eyes weren't blank when she smiled at him today.

"Oh, Cinna!" she cooed finally, "You brought me shells!"

Cinna hoped that Finnick had a very good reason to leave them again so soon.

* * *

><p>Growing up, the Odair shanty had shared a wall with the Healy home, and Cinna had spent as much time in the bedroom Finnick shared with two younger brothers and three older cousins as he'd spent in his own room next door. He would tuck up in Finnick's narrow bed, trying to stay far to his own side, but somehow in the night things would turn around and the two boys ended up sharing the pillow. Cinna always woke before Finnick and just lay there, holding his breath, pretending that this was really his life. Finnick had this patchwork quilt that got a little bigger every few months as he outgrew his clothes and they became more squares. It was familiar and warm and smelled like the sea, and Cinna loved it.<p>

But this was a new room, empty and clean, in the Victor's Village. The bed was new and had a headboard and footboard, and all of the brothers and cousins had rooms down the hall. Rain lashed the window outside as Finnick ran his hands over the golden trident before propping it up beside the door to stand guard against intruders.

"What do you think of the house?" Cinna asked, standing in the middle of the big room with his hands in his pockets.

Finnick shrugged and sat down on the edge of the enormous new bed. The quilt didn't even reach its edges. "S'okay. Come sit."

Cinna scratched the back of his ankle with one foot before going over to Finnick and sitting beside him. "It's a really nice house, Finnick. I've never seen anything like it."

"It's really small compared to the houses in the Capitol," Finnick said. "I saw one house that had hundreds of electric lights hanging from the ceiling in every room, and a glass staircase up to four whole floors of empty rooms. And every room was painted a different color and had furniture in it and the floors were made of stone."

Cinna was impressed. "When did you go to a house in the Capitol?"

Finnick wrapped his arms around his knees.

"You don't touch me anymore," Finnick observed softly. He looked smaller now, more like himself, sitting on his old patchwork quilt. He looked up at Cinna's eyes and Cinna was taken by the dark undercurrent in Finnick's sea eyes, something cold and sinking.

"No," Cinna agreed. "I guess not."

"Why?" Finnick asked.

Cinna floundered. "I don't know. You never – I didn't even think about it, I guess."

Finnick knotted his fingers together in his lap. "Are you afraid of me?"

Cinna swallowed. "I don't know."

Finnick crawled across the patchwork quilt as hurricane rain lashed the windows behind him. He put his hands on Cinna's knees and leaned up close to him. "Please don't be afraid of me."

Cinna nodded, but didn't touch him back. Finnick leaned in and ran the side of his nose along Cinna's, a warm nuzzle, and pressed his mouth to Cinna's lips.

Cinna reared back. "Heyo – what – what – "

"Kiss me," Finnick demanded, leaning up close again. Cinna pulled back further and Finnick leaned in, chasing him up the length of the big bed. "Kiss me. I need you to kiss me."

"N – I – stop it, Finnick!" Cinna begged, pushing at his shoulders. His entire face burned hot, his eyes blurring. "You're making fun of me!"

"I'm not making fun," Finnick said desperately, sliding his hands up Cinna's arms. "I _need_you to kiss me, Cinna, please. I pick you. Please, Cinna, just – I – I need you to – "

"I need to go home," Cinna whispered, furiously pushing the heels of his hands into his eyes. "I need to go home and you need to – you need to stay away from me and Annie. I _am_afraid of you now."

Finnick's palm hit the wall. "No, Cinna! Stop! Please don't leave, _please_! Fragum, Cinna, _listen_ to me! _Listen to me!_"

Cinna had never been the braver of the two boys. Six weeks ago, he'd used Finnick as a shield from the world of the Reaping, pressing his face into the hollow between Finnick's shoulders to hide his nervous tears.

But now he stopped, and he thumbed at his eyes, and he turned back to Finnick to let him talk. The Victor crouched on his knees, every tanned limb tuned tight, trembling, his shoulder blades protruding like dorsal fins – sharp and warning. His hair was wild from Annie's fingers and his eyes were wet and bright and frantic.

"President Snow sold me to a man," Finnick whispered, his voice so small that Cinna could scarcely hear him.

"What are you talking about?" Cinna's eyes narrowed. He crossed his arms over his chest. "He sold you like – like a servant? Like you have to move to the Capitol and work for some man?"

"No." Finnick's cheekbones burned red. "He sold _me_, my vir– me. He sold me to a man to help pay for next year's Games."

Cinna shook his head vehemently, flabbergasted. "He can't do that. That's illegal. You're not of age, why would anyone even – "

"They don't care in the Capitol," Finnick muttered miserably. "I don't think they care about anything. And it's not illegal if Snow does it."

"So you have to be like – you can't – he can't do that," Cinna repeated. He shrugged inside the embrace of his own arms. "Don't go. You don't have to go."

"_No!_" Finnick was across the room quickly enough that Cinna knew, if any small grain of sand in the universe were different, he could be dead at Finnick's hand before he even realized that the other boy was there. "You don't understand!" Finnick roared, pulling at him. "They're going to reap you again! They're going to reap you every year until you're dead or eighteen unless I – _just do this, Cinna_." He dug his fingers into Cinna's hips. "Just _fragum_ do this for me! _Please_."

Cinna shook his head and took a step back, as far as Finnick's grip would let him retreat. "You don't actually want me. I'm not going to… do that to you."

Finnick's eyes burned. There was none of the smiling, roguish boy who'd speared that big District Two tribute with his trident, and there was nothing left of the soft-lined, sunkissed boy who Cinna clung to as they waited for the Reaping. "And you think _anyone_in the Capitol will think like that? Do you think one single person in the Capitol is going to consider what I want?"

Cinna stuffed his hands into his pockets. He looked down. "I'll just go to the Games next year, Finnick. It's okay. Thank you for my extra year."

Finnick's knees buckled and he sat down hard on the floor, half-dragging Cinna with him because still, his grip hadn't abated. He buried his face in the side of Cinna's shoulder and cried, ugly, wet, shaking-silent sobs. Of everything he had seen, all the smiles Finnick wore as he killed people, his tears were the most frightening that Cinna thought Finnick had ever looked.

His hands loosened from Cinna's collar and started shaking, and Cinna – in a panic – handed Finnick a scrap string of halyard. He held Finnick's hands and guided them into Carrick bend, loop – pass the end over the bitter end; standing end below, thread and under load. Undo. Again: loop – pass the end over the bitter end; standing end below, thread and under load. Undo. Slowly, loop by loop, Finnick stopped crying.

"You can't go to the Games, Cinna," he whispered, still knotting his rope. "_I killed eight people_so you wouldn't have to go to the Games. I'm going to the Capitol to keep you out of them. You can't – I mean it's not that you're weak – "

"No, I am," Cinna assured him, pulling tight another underload. "You can say it."

Finnick looked up at him. "Help me out, Cinna. Please."

Cinna's eyes closed and he gingerly took his hands back. "Finnick… I really, really appreciate what you're trying to do. But if the Capitol wants to kill me, then – I don't think you doing this will stop them. You're just giving them more leverage."

"_I don't have a choice_," Finnick hissed. "The only choice I have is you. Now. Before I have to go."

Cinna's jaw tightened. "I don't – "

"Don't even say that you don't want to," Finnick said, his voice hard. "I know, Cinna. I've always known. We all know."

"That's why I can't!" Cinna exploded. "Finnick, this is – for you, this is the choice between terrible and tragedy. But for me – I can't – I don't want to be the lesser of two evils. I would rather die in the Games. Just let them Reap me."

Finnick grabbed Cinna's face between his palms, not gently, and kissed him, hard. "_No._"

He pressed his forehead against Cinna's and looked at him so close that their features blurred together. "If I weren't being sent back to the Capitol, then… no, you wouldn't be my first choice. Or probably any choice. But if I weren't being sent to the Capitol, it would probably be because you were dead. And if I don't go, you're dead anyway. We already killed eight people. I'm not going to kill you, too." He kissed Cinna again. "_You are a choice that I already made, Cinna._Okay?"

Cinna Healy closed his eyes and broke his own heart. "Okay."

Finnick wrapped his fingers around Cinna's wrist. "_Thank you_."

Cinna didn't trust himself to answer, so just nodded and bit his lip until Finnick reached up and thumbed at it, smiling encouragingly.

He'd smiled when he killed all the others, too.

* * *

><p>Cinna had imagined this moment a thousand times already, ever since he realized that sex existed in the world. His sketchbooks were full of Finnick in states of undress – both drawn from life, out on the beach, in the water, on their little skiff – and with his artist's eye, he knew every line and contour of Finnick's body.<p>

Or he had, before the Hunger Games. Before he was broken down into parts and pieces and rebuilt on the Capitol potters' wheels without the gap in his teeth or the crook in his smile. Finnick used to have calluses on his hands from ropes and fishhooks and a wicked scar on his calf from being hooked in a lobster trap when they were nine. It was gone now, just like that thin line of hair that Cinna had always envied and desperately wanted to touch. He could feel scars _under_Finnick's skin and it was like a punch in the chest, like being able to feel that the real Finnick was still there underneath everything that happened but to reach him again, he would have to be peeled raw.

Cinna couldn't close his eyes, so he knew the whole time that Finnick never opened his own. He never wanted to know whose lips Finnick pretended to be kissing or who Finnick was imagining when Cinna's tongue traced over vertebrae like medals. Finnick's new skin was warm and rosy and Cinna wanted to taste the ocean in Finnick, salt and depth and mystery and their past together and everything they'd always shared, but the Capitol had flushed all of District Four out of Finnick and instead he just tasted hollow.

Still, he was a fourteen-year-old boy, and the rush of pride he got from watching _his_fingers make Finnick hard and the dazed-absent shadow of Finnick's tongue wetting dry lips and the single, tiny, breathy sound Finnick rewarded him with when Cinna made him come with two crooked fingers inside him made it something irreplaceable.

It wasn't how Cinna had always wanted it. He had always pictured sunshine and soft waves and seawater or a tiny bed in a ramshackle shanty, not hurricane season howling outside the real glass windowpanes of a huge, empty, echoing house. But still, he could never deny that it was something he'd always wanted.

"Again," Finnick croaked after, pushing Cinna down to the mattress. "More. I want it all to be you. It has to all be you."

Cinna nodded and swallowed and held Finnick tight. "Okay. It's okay."

The sheets were wet by the time Finnick let Cinna collapse, boneless, onto the pillows. Both of their mouths were limned in red, like they were both wearing garish Capitol makeup, and Cinna would have laughed at the crazy angles of Finnick's hair if he weren't so exhausted that all he could do was press his own face into the pillow that was soaked in Finnick and go to sleep.

The soft muslin finally smelled like salt and the sea.

When Finnick came back from the Capitol, it was months later and Annie's thirteenth birthday had passed without a word. Cinna was there, and he gave her a pretty pink-and-white conch horn that made her eyes shine like mirrors when she held it to her ear, and a drawing of Finnick fishing, the muscles in his shoulders taut as he reeled in a golden net. She let him kiss her on the forehead before she squirmed away from him. When it came to Cinna, she was always pulling away.

When Finnick was really back, hurricane season was over and there was a white jellyfish bloom drifting offshore, littering the beach with empty transparent bodies. Cinna was nervous to see him and he wore his best pair of black pants and actually brushed his hair.

Finnick obviously hadn't. He was taller and his shoulders broader. The remnants of last night's glitter clung to his shoulders and chest. He held his head high, but the thin skin beneath his eyes was dark and smeared like bruises.

He held the trident in front of his chest like a shield.

Mags followed him off the train, her gnarled hand tucked into his hair. She smiled at Cinna and clapped him on the shoulder. "You look after him, now."

"I will, ma'am," Cinna said, still a little afraid of Mags. The old woman kissed Finnick's face where she could reach – just under his jaw – and started off down the sand towards the Victor's Village. Finnick reached up and patted down his hair where her fingers had mussed it.

He didn't shy away from Cinna. He didn't toy with the trident or avert his gaze. But he didn't throw his arms around his friend and press his face into Cinna's ear and breathe in District Four, the way he once had. "Hey."

Cinna thumbed his own knuckles, feeling the calluses and dry skin there. "Heyo." He paused. "Do you want to go see Annie?"

Finnick nodded. "I would like that."

"It was her birthday while you were gone," Cinna said, tucking his hands into his pockets as they began to trudge up the beach. "She missed you."

"I got her something," Finnick said, looking at his feet. "Or, I guess I have something for her."

Cinna was surprised at how much it made his heart feel sour. "Really?"

Finnick didn't look at him. "Yeah, I – it's a necklace. It's really nice, too. It's got diamonds on it."

"I don't think she's ever seen a diamond before," Cinna said, petulant and bitter and kicking up sand between his toes. "I gave her a picture of you. And a shell. It made her smile."

Finnick's mouth twitched. "Well, I have to give the stupid fragum necklace to someone, okay, and Mags didn't want it and I can't – I don't – I can't give it to my mom or Aunt Pearl and Eireann's too little."

Cinna exhaled in a loud gust. "So it's a necklace someone – "

"Leave it alone," Finnick said sharply. "I'm giving it to Annie, and you're not going to tell her anything about it. It's pretty. She likes pretty things." He looked out towards the ocean. "She can take it apart and string it up with her blue glass for all I care."

Cinna looked out at the sails billowing on the water.

"You were gone a long time."

"Cinna… drop it."

So Cinna was quiet, looking at the deflated bodies of the jellyfish drying out on the beach, and pointedly ignoring the deflated body that walked in his wake.

Annie was actually on her front porch today, waiting for them and bouncing on her heels, wearing the blue dress she wore for Reapings and holidays: threadbare at her hips and with one seaweed-thin strap loose and falling down over her shoulder. Her hair was a rumpled mess of knots around her face.

When Finnick gave her that necklace, her eyes came alive.

She threw her arms around his waist and Finnick stiffened in her arms, one hand curling into a claw like he'd forgotten that she took his golden trident away when he walked through the door. Annie liked to leave him defenseless, Cinna noticed. Maybe she could see the hammerhead fish in him now, too.

Finnick was only home for four months, long enough to renew his tan and callus his fingers and feet, before he pulled Cinna into bed again, begging, before another trip to the Capitol.

"You never even – " Cinna burst out, throwing Finnick's hands away from his belt and shaking his head, trying to find the words, "You didn't even hug me when you came back! You _never_touch me anymore, you're like – you're some cold Capitol thing now; I don't even want you!"

Finnick wrapped his arms around Cinna's knees and pressed the side of his face against Cinna's thigh. "_Please_, Cinna. It still hurts."

The next time Cinna saw Finnick after that night was on the huge videoscreen in the District Four square, mentoring their old rowing competitor, Sal Daly, and wearing a tiny gold net around his hips, pupils rolling like waves breaking against the pier. There was glitter all over his chest and a crown of twisted gold, like fronds of kelp, tangled in his hair. He grinned so wide and so white that Cinna could see all of his molars, his old District Four teeth gone and his new Capitol teeth grown back in their place.

Sal Daly died at the Cornucopia. Finnick Odair was nowhere to be found for comment.

Cinna tore three pages out of his sketchpad and fed them to the sea: Finnick in that tangled golden crown, the single-moment flash that Finnick had opened his eyes when they were tangled up in sheets and fixed Cinna with pupils blown wide, Finnick's gentle hands braiding strands of Annie's messy hair at her kitchen table. He watched the waves swallow them, their bellies folding in and going under like capsizing ships. When the tide ran out, Cinna trudged up the beach to Annie's house.

She was in her bedroom when he finally found her. He'd let himself in and called for her all over the house and backyard, even run down to the beach to look for her lost in the water again, before he heard her scuffling around and singing up in her room. She was standing on a chair, tinkling the strings of blue glass that hung from her ceiling like tentacles.

Cinna knocked on her doorframe and Annie actually looked over, her smile soft and bright.

"Hi, Cinna."

Cinna smiled and sat on the edge of her tiny, creaky bed. He looked around at all the strings of hanging glass. "Annie, where did you put that necklace?"

Annie smiled and clambered down from the chair. She sat on the tiny bed and pulled Cinna's sketchbook into her lap, flipping through pages and stopping to coo over his sketches of the white-winged boats on the wharf or the shrieking babies being dunked in the surf to learn to swim.

"I buried it in the yard," Annie said, turning the sketchbook upside-down to see at a new angle. "It was ugly. It made Finnick's eyes sad." Then she smiled and asked, "Can I draw you in your book?"

Cinna laughed and felt his cheeks color. "What?"

Annie's eyes shone. "You always draw everything except yourself. You should have pictures of you, too. And I can see you. I want to draw you."

Cinna shook his head and handed Annie a stick of charcoal. "You're always a surprise, Annie Cresta. I never know what to expect from you."

Annie smiled and pushed her thumb into Cinna's dimple. "Stay still. I'm not as good at drawing as you."

That was a lie, Cinna thought, twenty minutes later as he stared in shock at the perfect lines on his page. Somehow in watching him draw all those days, Annie had learned how to copy his movements, his style, Annie had taken in everything Cinna knew about drawing and reproduced it flawlessly in a photo-perfect sketch of his face. The angles were right. The shadows were right. She drew him shy and soft, with a tiny frown between his eyes, and Cinna wondered if that's how he really looked around her all the time.

"That's really beautiful, Annie."

Annie didn't look up, but splayed her free hand over his mouth. "Stay still. I'm not done yet." Annie kept drawing, trailing the kohl around and around on the page, shooting off in zigzags and curlicues, adding sparks and stars.

"What's that?" Cinna asked, forgetting to stay still.

"Ideas," Annie said absently as she shaded a star around Cinna's eye.

"Ideas?"

Annie nodded. "You always draw Finnick with his trident and you draw me swimming. You should have your ideas."

Cinna leaned over and kissed Annie hard on the forehead. She mewled and batted in the air in his direction, like she could push the kiss back into his mouth. She frowned disapprovingly at Cinna and turned back to her drawing. She shaded his lips in dark.

"Finnick will like this," Annie said, sounding pleased. "We can mail it to him so he remembers us."

_They will reap you every year until you're dead or eighteen._

You are a choice I already made.

"Oh, Annie," Cinna hedged, "Finnick remembers us. I'm not sure we can – "

Her eyes flickered and doused. She started humming again, her charcoal drawling in soft, unsteady lines. Cinna plucked it from her fingers.

"Okay, Annie, Annie – heyo, I'll take it and mail it to Finnick. I promise."

Annie smiled and stood up on her bed, brushing a tentacle of broken blue glass to hear it chime. Cinna closed the sketchpad and tucked it into his bag.

"Come on, Annie," he said, holding out his hand to help her jump down. "Let's go down to the beach."

Annie scrambled down on her own.

Cinna didn't draw for once as they sat on the beach. Annie knelt at the edge of the tidepools, picking up creatures and singing, and Cinna sat up the beach a few yards, where the sand was sunbaked and hot, and tilted his head back, eyes closed, to let the light paint pictures on his eyelids. He thought about what Annie said: Finnick had his trident, and Cinna had his ideas. If Annie noticed that, and if Annie had learned to draw, then Cinna could only wonder what else Annie Cresta knew.

Cinna jumped when Annie shrieked down by the shore and the memory of Annie trapped under all that water crashed over him and he was on his feet before he could think –

Annie looked up at him with great big mooneyes, holding a tiny red starfish on the tip of one finger. "Look!"

Cinna exhaled, his hands on his knees as he tried to catch his breath.

Annie smiled down at the tiny thing like it was the new sun. "Cinna, when are you gonna mail the picture to Finnick?"

Cinna closed his eyes again as he started back up the beach to his little peace. "I'll do it tonight, Annie. I promise."

Annie asked him five more times before he deposited her back in her kitchen in front of a loaf of green bread and a jar of orange roe and left her house, shutting the door behind him. He did not stop in the square on his way back to his own ramshackle row house. And he never would mail that drawing to the Capitol. Finnick didn't need for them to know there was anyone else they could threaten. Especially not someone like Annie, whose heart broke for starfish left dry by low tide.

Five and a half months later, Finnick stumbled off the train, tripping over his own feet and laughing while Mags tutted furiously behind him. He whooped and flung his arms around Cinna's shoulders, hanging his weight like lead. Finnick's skin was hot and damp and reeked of elderflower and newroses and jasmine. He left streaks of glitter on Cinna's brown, smooth arms.

Cinna peeled Finnick away. All that was left of the ocean in Finnick was the tiny ring of bled-out flat green around his alien pupils. Black shark eyes.

"Heyyyy, Cinna," Finnick slurred, grinning at him. "Long time no see…"

Cinna pulled back. "Yeah."

Finnick laughed and whirled on an unsteady heel to grab Mags and kiss her face. "Thanks for the help, Magsie Pie."

Mags raised one wrinkled eyebrow. "If you were anyone else, Finnick Odair…"

Finnick smiled. "You'd gut me with your hooks?"

Mags' face hardened. Cinna remembered with a jolt that he'd seen Mags do that once, on an old video reel of highlights from past Hunger Games. It was how she'd won. Caught a girl from District Eight on a big spiny hook, and made her insides fall out.

She turned to Cinna. "Take care of him. Just… try."

Mags hobbled off down the shore, leaning on her cane, and Finnick blew kisses after kisses at her retreating back.

Cinna frowned at him. "That wasn't very nice, Finnick. Mentioning her Games like that."

"She's a murderer," Finnick said, shrugging. "I'm a murderer. She's a murderer. I can take it. She should, too. We're bad people, me and Mags. She just pretends that she's not."

Cinna sighed. "You aren't bad, Finnick. You're _good_."

Finnick just stumbled and pitched over over into the soft sand. He laughed, picking up a handful. "This is hard to walk on! Let's go see Annie. Mad Annie. Mad, mad Annie."

Cinna crossed his arms over his chest. "I'm not taking you anywhere near her if you're going to act like this. Annie thinks the world of you, Finnick."

Finnick flopped onto his back and stared up at the sky. "I should have left her in the ocean. The world is terrible. So if she thinks the world of me, then I'm terrible, too."

"You don't mean that."

"I do," Finnick said, and his voice was hollow where it floated up from the ground. "I wish the hammerhead fish would eat us all. Then we could start over."

Cinna kicked sand at Finnick. "Get up. Snap out of it. Go dunk your head in the water and sober up. Annie wants to see _you_, not a ball of candycaine."

Finnick snorted a giggle, but crawled to his knees and did what Cinna asked, toddling his unsteady way down to the shoreline. He stuck his head under the water for a long time, but came up looking a little clearer. His legs seemed to hold him better, anyway, when he trudged back up the beach.

"Are you good?" Cinna asked, still scowling.

Finnick nodded, abashed. His eyes still glittered black. "Annie?"

Cinna shook his head.

Cinna pushed Finnick's head into the lapping ocean twice more on their way to the Crestas' shack, trying to get him to sober up and stop singing Annie's songs and be _Finnick_again for her. Finnick stumbled on a piece of driftwood caught in the sand outside Annie's house and he fell hard onto his ass into the sand, and the jarring thump of it seemed to spook him, making him skittish and mumblydrunk again with his eyes big and fearful like moons.

Cinna softened and held out his hand – at a distance, just offering. "Come on. We're almost there."

Finnick looked up at him. "Cinna?"

Cinna sighed. "Yup. Come on, Annie could see us from the window."

Then Finnick rubbed his hands over his face and started laughing again, the fear all gone, pushed down somewhere deep. "Cinna… Cinna!" he whispered urgently, giggles trapped in his voice. "Cinna… we've had _sex_."

Cinna kneaded his eyes with the knuckles of one hand and shook his head, turning and starting to march up the beach. "Yeah. Look, whenever you're able to remember what's going on, Annie's house is that pink one – "

"Cinna!" Finnick called from down the beach, still sitting in the sand amidst the dead starfish and rotting wood, "Cinna!"

Cinna turned.

Finnick smirked with his matte black eyes. "You like it when I do – " He stuck out his tongue and drew circles in the air.

Cinna covered his face with both hands and stomped up the wet-creaky steps of Annie's house. She sat in the window like a cat, all curled up warm and small. She looked up at Cinna with wide, sympathetic eyes.

"What's wrong with Finnick?" Then she just shook her head and clucked her tongue, unfolding her paper wings and scrambling down from the window. The strap of her blue dress dripped off one soft, tan shoulder. "I'm going to bring him some bread."

"Annie, I don't – "

"Bread makes him feel better," Annie said firmly, heading into the kitchen without looking at Cinna. "It makes him come back. He always comes back when he wants bread."

So Cinna stood in the window, shaded by Annie's fraying lace curtains, and watched as she slipped down the beach and settled down in the sand beside Finnick. She said something, her lips making quick-fleeting pink shapes, and she smoothed her hand through Finnick's wild hair. The breeze ruffled at her skirt, pushing it up one thin, brown thigh, and Cinna felt his stomach tighten as he watched Finnick's black eyes follow. Annie said something else, the edges of her mouth turned down, and Finnick looked surprised for a moment before nodding.

Annie handed him some bread.

Finnick turned the pale green slice over and over in his hands, studying it. He tore off a fleck of crust and tossed it down the sand for the gulls.

Annie put her hand on Finnick's wrist. A gale blew in off the sea and blurred them at the edges, tossing up Annie's hair and threadbare blue skirt and Finnick's bronze tangles and Cinna watched from the window as Annie crawled two steps closer to Finnick and stilled his hands. She put her little hands on his face and made him look up at her, and she frowned as she looked at the black of his eyes. She closed his lids with her thumbs and said something, tongue clicking over her teeth.

Finnick shook his head. And he started eating the bread.

Small white-crested waves washed up on the beach, and Annie Cresta tipped her head to rest her ear against Finnick's shoulder, like she was trying to hear the ocean inside him still.

Cinna stared at them from the window, and sketched out the shape of their silhouette against the afternoon in sharp-angled lines.

When Annie delivered Finnick back to Cinna on her doorstep, his eyes held more green but his hands shook and his knees trembled, just a little, like now he remembered how to stand – but he really didn't want to have that responsibility.

"Finnick loved my drawing," Annie reported, like Finnick wasn't standing there listening to her lie.

"Yup," Finnick said, an oil-easy smile spreading over his face and Cinna heard that awful laugh in the back of his throat that spelled that Finnick wasn't quite sober, still, not really, and hadn't been in a long time. "Loved it."

Annie brightened like the sun and pet Finnick's hair. "See you tomorrow. Bye, Cinna."

The two boys started off down the beach, the trident dragging a line between them in the sand. Finnick reached across it and wrapped his hand around Cinna's smooth forearm.

"Come home with me," he asked.

Cinna looked at the shell of green around Finnick's black eyes. "Okay."

The house in Victor's Village still smelled like fresh paint and clean wood, even after a year. Finnick's bedroom still echoed with emptiness and Cinna felt out of place, missing their old townhome and the tiny bedroom with a greasy window and tiny bed tucked tight between Perce and Breidon. The loss felt like a whole being, tucked up inside Cinna's chest, a parasite breathing the air out of his lungs.

Finnick draped his arms around Cinna from behind, the heat of his mouth against the back of Cinna's shoulder. He opened his hands and revealed the two pebble-sized crystals in his palm. They were multifaceted like they'd been cut by a jeweler and they reflected a soft purple glisten from the light overhead.

"What is it?" Cinna asked, looking down at the things. "More diamonds someone gave you?"

Finnick laughed, low and rich and throaty, beside his ear. "Yeah. Diamonds." He paused. "You want one?"

Cinna shrugged and Finnick tightened his arms around his shoulders. "What would I do with a diamond?"

Finnick laughed again – "They're not really diamonds, Cinna. You swallow them. Then nothing hurts."

Cinna stood a little straighter and shook his head. "No – I – no, Finnick. And you should get rid of them. There are little kids in the house. Remember? All your cousins? And have you even said hello to them yet?"

Finnick made an impatient noise. "Come on, Cinna. You're wound so tight. Just let it go. Where's the Cinna I remember, huh?" He pushed a huge, hot hand over Cinna's chest. "You used to love touching me. You were so much fun. What happened to you, huh?"

Cinna frowned. "Annie happened. The Hunger Games happened. _This_ happened to _you_, Finnick. That's what happened."

Finnick scraped his teeth against Cinna's ear and Cinna shivered at the feeling of his tongue. "Wouldn't it be nice to pretend for a little while that it didn't? That none of it ever happened? That it's still just you and me, out on that boat? Sunshine. Heat. We could be so warm."

Cinna bit his lip.

"Okay."

Finnick patted Cinna on the side of his hip. "Good man." He finally unwound himself from Cinna's back and stood in front of him, holding out one of the gently-phosphorescent lavender glass crystal.

"I'm nervous," Cinna blurted, feeling a blush flare into his face as he looked down at the gem. He chanced a flick of his eyes up to Finnick's face and an almost-hysterical giggle welled up in his chest, and he really felt like everything was the way it used to be, when Finnick made him swim all the way out and touch the buoys for the first time, or steal a honeycomb candy from the rations store, or when Finnick laid his hand on Cinna's side and said, _heyo, it'll be okay_and it never really was okay again.

Finnick thumbed at Cinna's lip and slipped the crystal into his mouth.

"Don't chew it," he warned, linking his fingers into Cinna's. "Just let it dissolve under your tongue."

Cinna had expected it to be bitter, but it was somehow even sweeter than sugar – a violent, curdling sort of sweet – and he tried not to grimace as Finnick squeezed his fingers and slipped the second crystal under his own tongue.

"How long does it take?" Cinna asked, forcing himself to swallow the saccharine.

Finnick stepped closer and wrapped his arms around Cinna's waist, sliding his hands down, down under the waist of Cinna's pants. "Not long."

And then Finnick kissed him and it didn't take long at all, or it did, but Cinna didn't notice; things seemed to grow new legs all around them, little, tickling ones like so many tentacles, the air waving them like tensile strings that brushed up against all of Cinna's skin. Finnick's tongue in his mouth was too much, too sweet, and Finnick's hands on his skin weren't enough, too hot, not hot enough. Colors shifted and flickered around them as Finnick got down on his knees and slid off Cinna's shorts and Cinna stared, amazed, at the fire-orange glow around Finnick's face and the thumping purple flames licking up the walls in long, spreading strands.

He pushed his hands through Finnick's hair when Finnick took him into his mouth, and deeper, into his throat, and Cinna couldn't feel anything except his hands and his cock all tied up in Finnick and fire and violet.

It was the first time Finnick kept his eyes open when they were together, and vaguely, somewhere floating up off the top of his brain, Cinna wondered what Finnick was really seeing.

Finnick's hands slid up Cinna's legs and onto him and into him and Cinna felt like they detached and made more hands, little copies of Finnick's hot hands all over him, crawling around where Finnick's paws had touched and leaving little footprints like the gulls hopping around on the beach, little scars that would live on his skin – unlike Finnick's, where all the scars hid underneath. He tingled and throbbed.

He came and Finnick swallowed around him and Cinna's knees felt weak, but when he buckled the world tilted with him in a shine of purplegraygreen and Finnick caught him with a wild laugh and pushed him down onto the bed.

"More," Finnick gasped, trailing his tongue – too hot, too too hot – over Cinna's neck. "More, always more. It has to be you. It all has to be you."

"Okay," Cinna whispered, watching the colors change behind Finnick's eyes. "Okay."

Finnick set him on fire.

The next morning, Cinna woke with a pounding headache and the bed cold beside him. He wrenched an eye open and was blinded by Finnick's eclipse, the harsh morning sunlight breaking bright around the dark-finned silhouette of Finnick's crumpled shoulders.

Finnick turned. His face was pinched and his knuckles white where he clutched a mug of dark tea.

"How long have I been back?" Finnick asked, his voice raspy and sounding used.

Cinna dug the heel of his hand into his eye to try to stop the pounding in his head. "Yesterday."

Finnick nodded and looked down at the tea. His face shimmered in the morning sunlight and Cinna thought it was horrific if he was still so high, but then he realized – Finnick had been crying.

"What was that stuff, Finnick?" Cinna asked, rolling onto his back and holding the patchwork quilt tight around him, armor up to his chest.

Finnick shook his head. "I don't know. They just call it crystals."

Cinna blinked at his friend. "Are you on morphling, too?"

Finnick hiccupped a sad laugh. "I wish. That's the only drug they won't give me. 'No needles, Finnick! No bruises! You have to look good!'"

Cinna remembered when it used to be that Finnick couldn't eat bread for them.

He remembered when that seemed like the worst legacy they could have left him.

After a whirlwind week, Finnick was gone again, booked as the entertainment (he said bitterly) for a party at President Snow's manor.

"That's the price I get to pay for being legal and alive," Finnick said, vials of pink powder and softly-glowing crystals jingling in his bag as he ran into Cinna halfway between the shoreline and the square. Cinna looked down the sand and saw Annie flapping her hands at the water, and was glad that it seemed Finnick remembered to say goodbye to her this time. "Welcome to Panem."

"I'm sorry," Cinna whispered. "I'm sorry you felt like you had to Volunteer for me. If I had known what – "

Finnick looked up sharply and wrapped his arms around Cinna's shoulders in a tight hug. "Even if I'd known, I still would have done it. I need you around, right? And Annie needs you. Take care of yourself and take care of her."

Cinna pressed his face into Finnick's shoulder. "You know, Mags told me last week to take care of you."

Finnick laughed and clapped Cinna on the back. "Sounds like Mags. What'dja say?"

Cinna pulled back and looked hard into Finnick's eyes. They were finally green again, full of the sea and Annie's green bread, but they both knew it wouldn't last much longer. "I said I'd try. And I will, Finnick. I'll find a way."

Finnick smiled sadly, appreciatively, in a way that made Cinna profoundly aware of how well he knew Finnick's mouth and how guilty that made him feel. Like he was a Capitol pawn, too, playing into this breakdown of Finnick Odair, the Victor who shouldn't have won because he did it for love and not hate.

"Don't hold your breath," Finnick said, not at all sad. "I've gotta go. I don't know when I'll be back, so if I'm not around for the Reaping, keep an eye on Annie for me, okay? And… you should let her draw you again. But smiling this time."

Cinna pressed his face into the curve of Finnick's shoulder again and nodded, squeezing his ribs tight before Finnick turned, took up his bag full of drugs, and went back to the train bent for the Capitol. Cinna watched as he disappeared up the beach, then turned the other way and went down, towards the shore and the wild blue tide pool where he saw Annie dancing on the sand.

Annie bounced up and down on her heels, swinging her skirt in her hands and singing. When she looked to Cinna, her eyes were so full they shone.

Cinna grinned at her. "What's got you so happy?"

Annie spun happily, around and around, until finally Cinna caught her around the waist and made her look up at him.

"Finnick loves me," she sang, her voice overflowing with laughter. "He _kissed_me."

Cinna tried his hardest to keep the smile on his face as he looked into Annie Cresta's innocent, sparkling eyes. "Really? He kissed you?"

Annie nodded, her tangles of hair catching the sunlight. Cinna noticed that for the first time, tiny braids were sprinkled amongst the knots. Cinna recognized the steady hand that coiled those braids.

Annie beamed.

"He kissed me right here," she said, pointing to her forehead. Her cheeks flushed pink and she bounced on her heels again in Cinna's arms. "Finnick loves me!"

Cinna thought of how many times in his life he had kissed Annie's forehead, and how many times Finnick had kissed his mouth, and Finnick all alone on that train heading into the Capitol just to keep him safe, and the way Finnick kept those vials of powders and pills hidden in the bottom of his pillowcase now and thought no one knew. He thought of that day out on the red water, and how Finnick pulled Annie aboard their boat. He thought of the way Finnick always brought Annie bits of blue glass and diamonds.

Cinna hugged Annie, and she squirmed until he let her free. "I'm sure he does."

Annie wrapped her arms around herself and Cinna wondered why his hugs weren't enough, that she had to embrace herself. She whirled around again and he realized that he'd always known the answer, anyway. He wasn't Finnick.

Then Annie laid her palms against Cinna's face and turned his head down to look into her eyes. "He loves you, too. It's just different."

Cinna smiled sadly and Annie smiled back, pushing her thumb into one of his dimples. "Did Finnick tell you to say that?"

"No." Annie looked troubled. "Why would he do that?"

Cinna stepped back and shook his head. "No reason." He dug his toes into the perpetually wet sand outside the Crestas' front door. "Did you want to go down to the tide pools today?"

Annie shook her head. "I want to go out on your boat. Remember that time you and me and Finnick were out on your boat? There were so many jellyfish that day, remember? That was the biggest bloom I've ever seen. Have you ever seen more jellyfish? Can we go out on your boat?"

Cinna stared at her. "Finnick won't be there. He's gone, remember? He's in the Capitol?"

Annie's face fell for a moment and her eyes glossed over, but then she brightened and fingered one of the tiny ropework braids tangled in her hair. "I know. But you can draw pictures of the things we see and then we can tell him about it when he comes back. He'll come back. Finnick loves me, and he always comes back."

* * *

><p>The night before the Reaping the year Cinna turned nineteen, he found Finnick standing on the beach, letting the warm water lick at his ankles. Empty glass vials and powder compacts littered the shoreline around him, just bobbing and waiting to be washed out to sea. Finnick looked smaller and younger than he had in five years, wrapped in a bulky sweater that Cinna recognized as Annie's signature distracted, fanciful hand. The wind tugged at Finnick's wild bronze hair, and it struck Cinna anew just how beautiful a man he was.<p>

A foghorn sounded, far, far away.

"Are you going to the Capitol tonight, then?" Cinna asked, digging his toes into the sand.

"No," Finnick said, looking out towards the sea. He wrapped the sleeves of the long sweater tighter around his wrists. "I'm not going. You're too old for the Reaping now. I'm not going back to the Capitol ever again. Mags can mentor without me."

Cinna smiled sadly and nodded, looking out at the white-crested waves. "You're free."

Finnick was quiet for a long time, playing with the loose hems of his sweater, watching the water. Cinna stood off to the side, sketchbook in hand, drawing a dress of crystal bubbles on one page, a headdress shaped like a silver lobster on another. He drew Annie smiling serene and strong in a crown of starfish, and drew Finnick in this moment, wearing long pants and a threadbare sweater, hunched against himself and looking young and lost as the ocean licked at his feet.

The next morning, District Four gathered for the Reaping. Finnick pasted on his Capitol smile and left his starched white shirt, shot through with threads of gold, open against his brown chest and his small gold shorts hung low on his strong hips. He held the trident at his side as he winked and blew kisses to the crowd. Cinna stood at the back with the adults, glad that he was finally out of the pens.

First, the boy's name: Brennan Spirula. Cinna didn't know him. He looked to be fifteen, but wide – probably a Trainer. Mags would have an easy time with him. Sulla should paint him in wet browns and corals; make him look rough like sharkskin. He would wear pointed dorsal fins well. Finnick smiled at the boy and it was all wrong, too many teeth, and then there were two sharks onstage.

Cinna looked to the pen of girls all pressed together like a woven net of sweaty arms and shaking knees, and then, just behind them, as every year, poking her way through a tide pool –

"Annie Cresta!"

A ripple of hushed horror swelled through the crowd, crashing up against the pen of girls. _Annie Cresta? The girl just wasn't right. Annie Cresta? Don't you remember when her momma disappeared? Oh, Annie. Oh, Annie._Cinna pressed his knuckles to his mouth.

Finnick's Capitol grin fell and he looked as though someone had speared him in the stomach this time and he was bleeding out on camera. Annie kept poking through her tide pool, lifting out hermit crabs, humming softly to herself. A Peacekeeper came over and grabbed her arm, hard, and Annie cried out, surprised, as he dragged her up to the stage. _Oh, Annie, oh, Annie._

Her face brightened when she saw Finnick and she waved happily. Finnick's face paled to gray. And Cinna tasted blood where his hand pressed to his mouth.

Annie reached out for Finnick as the Peacekeepers dragged her into the Justice Building to sit and await her goodbyes, but Finnick was already gone, leaping off the stage and disappearing pell-mell across the sand like a madman. Cinna rubbed the blood away from his fingers on the side of his black pants and went to Annie in the prim waiting room. She was curled up in a tiny ball on the corner of the too-opulent sofa, her hands over her ears and that blasted strap of her old blue Reaping dress still falling off one shoulder.

Alamela, the Capitol official who had kept the inset third eye and finally managed to mellow old those old decorative scars with a bleached-white skin graft, looked despondent. "She won't stop singing that _song_!"

Cinna sat down just behind the little knot that was Annie Cresta and tentatively put his hand on her back. He listened closely.

_Up rose the tide and washed the starfish out; out came the sun and out ran the tide, and the itsy-bitsy starfish was happy when he died._

"Annie," Cinna said softly, "Annie, will you come out please?"

She shook her head into her knees and sang louder.

"Annie, do you know what's happening?"

Her words faltered. Cinna rubbed her back until she twitched his hand away.

"The hammerhead fish are coming," Annie whispered, barely audible. "But Finnick always comes for me. The itsy-bitsy starfish…"

Cinna looked up at Alamela. "Can you send Finnick in? He's the – he's the only one who can really… he knows how to bring her back when she's like this."

Alamela wrung her hands. "We can't find him. He and Mags are both missing and the rest of the Victors refuse to mentor… that," she said, gesturing at Annie as though she were already a rotting carcass, washed up on the beach.

Cinna chanced a kiss to the back of Annie's head. "I'm going to get Finnick. You swim, Annie Cresta. You _swim_until he gets you."

As he pressed past Alamela Pilate in the scalloped doorway of the District Four Justice Building, Cinna Healy stood tall and held his chin high.

"Ms. Pilate," he said, "I suppose I should tell you that I will be coming along with the rest of the District Four team to the Capitol. I'll get you a book of materials as application to be apprentice Designer by tomorrow morning."

He would petition to put Annie in the dress of crystal bubbles –

Somehow, she always floated.

Cinna ran down the shoreline and up the path to the Victor's Village. Shattered glass littered the walkway like ever-winking eyes, and Cinna heard the crashing splinter of wood when he was still yards down the beach.

Perce and Eireann huddled on Mags' porch next door, trying to console the frantic gaggle of littlest Odairs to no avail. Mags had a toddler in each arm and looked livid.

"You go tell him he's scared these young'uns about to death," she hissed to Cinna, and he blanched and ducked into the house in Victor's Village with jagged broken windows like wounds.

The front door hung awkwardly on its hinges.

The delicate curtains were all slashed.

Cinna recognized the three-tined handiwork of a trident.

Splinters of wood, shards of pottery, and blades of glass covered the floor. The telephones and videoscreen had been ripped from the walls and smashed open, bleeding out their guts of green and red wires. The furniture was in shambles.

Cinna heard an inhuman roar from upstairs and took the steps first two, then three at a time. Feathers clung to every surface of the upstairs hall, cilia clinging to broken skeletons of beds and empty muslin organs that had once been mattresses and pillows.

A destroyed patchwork quilt came hurtling out of the last bedroom down the hall and Cinna clutched it like a shield.

"Finnick," he called, his throat dry, "It's Cinna. I'm coming in."

Finnick crouched, wild-eyed and heaving, in the middle of the trashed floor. His shirt, his stupid gold shirt, still hung open over his chest and Cinna could see the bruises blooming, like Finnick had broken all that furniture with his body. In one hand, he clutched a golden trident.

In the other he cradled a tiny, black gunmetal spider.

"It's a bug," he said, his voice so calm it echoed hollow. He looked up and through Cinna. "Fourth one I've found. They bugged the house. That's why all the Victors have to move. They bug the houses."

Cinna clutched the tattered old quilt and nodded.

Finnick's face twisted into a grotesque battle mask and he roared again, smashing the bug under his foot. He stabbed it with the tines of his trident, jabbing dents into the wooden floor over and over and over.

"That's how they knew about Annie!" His voice was broken. "That's how they know about you and Perce and Eireann and _that's how they knew I wasn't going to the Capitol last night_. Fragum," Finnick spat, the trident whirling to take out the mirror on the wall. Cinna cowered, trying to protect his face from flying glass. "What have I _ever_ done to them? I've done _everything_ they wanted me to do, I gave them everything. I _killed_ people for them and I let them – I was their perfect little whore and – I DID FUCKING EVERYTHING I'VE EVER DONE TO PROTECT YOU AND ANNIE!" Finnick roared, and the sharp Capitol curse made Cinna flinch. "Fucking _everything_."

He threw the trident and its tines buried deep into the wall, its shaft twanging like a tuning fork.

Cinna barely reached Finnick in time to catch him when he collapsed.

"I can't do this," Finnick whispered, choking on his own breath. "I can't give them Annie, too."

Cinna nodded and let Finnick's dead weight drag them both to the debris-strewn rubble of the floor. "I'm coming with you," he said, surprised by how steady his voice sounded. "To the Capitol. We can help Annie win."

Finnick looked up at Cinna in a mask of utter, poetic despair. "There is no way, Cinna. There is no way she can win."

Cinna cradled the broken boy in his arms. He gently handed Finnick a short length of fishing line, and Finnick tied his knots savagely, as though it were the rope that had finally beaten him, and not the noose of the Capitol. "She beat the hammerhead fish once, Finnick. For you. She can do it again." He paused. "Is there anything you can – "

"_Do_?" Finnick finished, laughing a dry, cracked laugh. Tears ran down his face and he didn't even seem to notice. He pulled a knot so tightly that the twine broke in his fingers. "I'll put in some calls."

Cinna held him a while longer, smoothing down Finnick's flyaway hair and feeling him shake. Outside the broken windows, the rain season began.

* * *

><p>They were silent on the train, Finnick, Mags, Cinna, and Annie. Alamela kept away from them, a little afraid of babbling Annie with her haunting singsong, and kept Brendan away, too, like it was something contagious and poisoning.<p>

Cinna sat with his forehead against the window of the train. It was the first time he'd ever ridden one, and the motion made him feel a little sick, chugging along faster and faster over dry land. They could still see the ocean, glittering and throwing light in blinding stripes, dotted with shadowed slices of sails. Mags sat beside him, knobbly arthritic hands shaking as she tugged at a sharp bone hook. Cinna could tell she wasn't looking at the ocean – she was staring at the little spindle of a girl wrapped around Finnick across the way.

Cinna couldn't understand how Finnick and Annie bore facing backwards on the train – he was sick enough facing forwards – but maybe, just maybe, it was because they both wanted to see District Four the way it was for a last time. The lace of white foam on the tips of waves. How the sand was a brown so dark it was almost violet down far on the shore. The wide mouth of a curve on one of Annie's tide pools, white shells like crooked teeth at its lips. Crescent-shaped fins cutting high out of the water –

Cinna sat shock straight and stared at the dark shapes in the water below those fins.

Long, torpedo-shaped bodies.

Wide, notched heads.

"Look," Annie said, her fingertips smudging the clean Capitol glass, "Hammerhead fish."


	2. District One: The Boy with the Trident

**Author**: **aimmyarrowshigh**  
><strong>Fandom<strong>: _The Hunger Games_, Suzanne Collins  
><strong>Story Title<strong>: "Five Places Cinna Came From"  
><strong>Summary<strong>: _Cinna did not come from the Capitol. Five paths he took out of the Districts, and why he set a nation on fire._  
><strong>CharacterRelationships**: (Specific to each section; listed on those pages.) OVERALL - Cinna/Finnick, Finnick/Annie, Katniss/Peeta. Johanna. Haymitch. Beetee. Mags. President Snow.  
><strong>Rating<strong>: M  
><strong>Warnings<strong>: There are very separate, very specific trigger warnings on each District's story, so please read those if you have concerns.  
><strong>Wordcount<strong>: (total) 86,000  
><strong>Disclaimer<strong>: I only own the original characters and concepts. All settings and proprietary language are owned by the author of the work from which this is derived.  
><strong>Notes<strong>: Originally written for **panemetfabulae** for **sihaya09**. She wanted "Finnick POV pre-canon, AUs where different people died in/survived Mockingjay, or Johanna POV on how she won her games," so here are four pre-canon Finnicks and a How Johanna Won Her Games. :) I really hope you enjoy it! I would never have managed to finish this without **poppypickle**, **badguys**, **electrumqueen**, **puella_nerdii**, **glycerineclown**, **lovepollution**, **skellerbvvt**, and **rurone**.

* * *

><p><strong>Author<strong>: **aimmyarrowshigh**  
><strong>Fandom<strong>: _The Hunger Games_, Suzanne Collins  
><strong>Story Title<strong>: "Five Places Cinna Came From: District One (The Boy with the Trident)"  
><strong>CharacterRelationships**: Cinna, Finnick, President Snow, Plutarch Heavensbee, Cinna/Finnick, Finnick/others.  
><strong>Rating<strong>: M  
><strong>Warnings<strong>: Spoilers for all three books (although as long as you know what Finnick does for a living and who Annie is, you're probably okay on _Mockingjay_). Violence, forced sexual slavery, physical/emotional/sexual abuse, bad language, character death, underage sexual contact, pornography/prostitution. All of the usual feel-good content of Collins' Hunger Games world!  
><strong>Major trigger warnings:<strong> Forced sexual slavery.  
><strong>Wordcount<strong>: 86,000  
><strong>Disclaimer<strong>: I only own the original characters and concepts. All settings and proprietary language are owned by the author of the work from which this is derived.

**Five Places Cinna Came From  
><em>District One: The Boy with the Trident<em>**

**002. District One**  
>"So, my dear sweet boy," cooed Mrs. Persephone Midas, smoothing her fingers through her only son's fine brown hair, "Which of the Tributes do you fancy this year? Hmm? I know Pyreight was always very kind to you at school."<p>

Cinnabar Midas didn't tell her that Pyreight had actually been an insufferable bully – all of the Volunteers were – and that he was the one who had burned Cinna's clothes after Games Education one day last year. He was the one who punched Cinna in the eye back in March and snarled, _stop frothing staring, freak; I could do better than you with one arm cut off_.

Cinna hadn't been staring at Pyreight, anyway. Just his clothes. Just the skinny cut of Pyreight's silk tie and the strange shape of the tie-tack, like a great opal trackerjacker.

"No," Cinna said, tilting his head to allow Persephone to keep combing his hair. "I haven't decided yet. They're not so impressive this year. I know I don't want Pyreight or Oxsana, though." He smiled at his doting mother. "Thank you for letting me choose this year."

Persephone kissed the top of Cinna's head. "You were so brave at the Reaping ceremony, it's only fair. You know how much your father and Lanus love the Games. It's the best time of their year."

Cinna smiled. "The Reaping wasn't that scary. Everyone knew Pyreight or Pontius was going to be chosen, anyway."

The side of Persephone Midas' mouth twitched with an almost imperceptible tic. "I'm just glad that you're too small to be a Volunteer, sweetest heart. You'll make such a wonderful little couturier one day."

Cinna flushed. "Thanks." A huge cheer came up on their videoscreen. "It's time for the opening ceremonies!"

"Let's see if we can spot Father and Lanus," Persephone said, her eyes warm with love for her son but dazed, as always, from the opillium.

Cinna knew he wouldn't be scouring the stands for his father any more than his mother would actually focus on what was happening on the screen at all. Cinna liked the Games alright – some years were more interesting, more exciting than others – but he lived for the designs of the Opening Ceremonies and the interviews. Only the best designers in Panem were selected for the Games, and Cinna followed the receptions of all of the runway shows and collection photospreads in the glossies so closely that his father joked that soon, they would need to build Cinna a whole new wing of the house just for his 'fashion nonsense.'

Nonsense or not, Cinna knew one thing: he was good. He was really good for his age, and if he kept it up and stuck close to his father's friends, especially Lanus, then he could get drafted out of One to design for the Games one day.

The lights lowered in the massive stadium onscreen and with a loud, high wail, the music began and the processional started, Claudius Templesmith announcing in a voiceover.

Pyreight and Oxsana looked like they'd been dipped in gold. Something about each of them had changed – Cinna thought maybe Pyreight's cheekbones had been sharpened; they looked almost weaponized now. Oxsana's eyes seemed wider than Cinna remembered, but she was much older than he and Pyreight – she had Volunteered, since next year she would be too old to play in the Games. Cinna was certain that her breasts were bigger. She looked nice – they both did, really, all shining against the lights – but it didn't seem functional. They were pretty. They were statues. They weren't frightening.

The District Two representatives were meant to look scary. Their costumes are the same as they had been the year before, and the year before that, maybe back sixty-five years. Ill-fitting pants and boxy jackets with matching caps and heavy rubber-soled boots, all in a laughable earth-toned pattern that Cinna had learned from an old book used to be considered camouflage. They weren't glamorous, but both tributes were huge – even the girl looked like she could throw about three Cinnas at once if she wanted. They were both older, like Oxsana, and Cinna didn't think it would be a stretch for one of them to win.

The boy from District Three had thick glasses that kept sliding down his nose. He was so thin that Cinna had to look away, embarrassed for him to be paraded around behind the huge boy from District Two and –

That boy behind him was _naked_.

Cinna thumbed at his eyes in disbelief and looked back to the screen – oh, he wasn't _naked_, not exactly. There was a tiny swatch of gray-green netting tangled around him like a skein of seaweed and his skin had been freckled with tiny seashells. His skin was sunkissed – Cinna thought maybe it had been _real sun_, too, and it seemed so exotic and wild and fierce; real sunshine! – and he'd been rubbed all over with something that made him glisten. He had huge green eyes and steady gaze and he didn't even seem to notice that he was _naked_in front of all of Panem.

The crowd out in the Capitol took one look at him and roared and Cinna's heart felt like it might beat out of his chest when this naked, wild boy from District Four tilted his head, just so, and acknowledged the crowd with a smirk.

"Him," Cinna said, pointing to the screen and looking up at his mother. "Let's sponsor him."

Persephone smiled indulgently. "What do you think we should have Father make for him?"

Cinna drank in the Tribute, the dimples at the base of his spine and the ropy muscles glistening under all those bright Capitol lights. He knew that District Four was near the sea; this boy must know how to swim.

Cinna imagined him in the water. He imagined the sun beating down on all that skin, toasting it warm and brown and beautiful.

He stared at those calm, fierce sea-green eyes.

"A trident," Cinna said finally. "A gold trident. Really sharp."

It was only later, when Caesar Flickerman and Couric Ombudsman were chitter-chattering about that very same boy, calling early odds on him to be in the final eight contenders, that Cinna realized that the wild boy from District Four was the youngest in the arena, and the only Tribute smaller was the anemic boy from District Three. If he'd realized that, maybe he would have chosen another Tribute to sponsor, maybe the huge boy from District Two or the crafty-looking girl from Eleven.

It was that costume. Or the lack of one. Cinna noticed the boy – Finnick, Caesar had called him; _can we call you Finn? You can call me whatever you want as long as you call me Victor_– because he could practically see the sunlight and seawater bleeding out of him in all that skin. He looked like a naiad, ready to seduce all of Panem into the water to die.

That costume probably saved Finnick Odair's life, and Cinna's trident would help.

When Cinna went to bed that night, he dialed up a still shot of Finnick's smirk to the crowd on the big screen in his wall and stared at it, lettings its gentle electric hum glow over him.

"Finnick," Cinna whispered, trying the name out on his lips. "Finnick Odair."

His hand slipped under the waistband of his soft sleep-pants. He'd done this before, obviously; he was a normal teenage boy. But he'd never done it for a specific face, for a particular pair of wide green eyes, for smirking lips or the dimples at the base of someone's spine. He came three times before he fell asleep with the moon already waning, and still when he woke to Finnick's face still flickering on the wall, his sheets were newly sticky.

* * *

><p>Cinna's crisp new boots made little tap-tapping sounds on the marble road through the District One square on his way to school. Classes were cancelled to celebrate the Games, but he'd left his little tin of Tyrian purple in his cubby in the Design Workshop and he didn't want Indigo to steal it. The glare of high noon sunlight over the shining, pink-veined white surfaces of the Alterior of District One burned Cinna's eyes and he shaded them quickly, before they watered and made his false eyelashes droop. Now that he'd finally found his face – and how long it took to apply every morning – he wasn't keen on letting it melt.<p>

Out of habit, he glanced Eastward towards the Demitto, where the marble roads tapered off into red cobblestone and the buildings had simple aluminum walls instead of carved marble. Still blinding, but less beautiful. Cinna had never been into the Demitto, and he'd never really met anyone who lived there – they had their own school and their own hours at the shops and their own dining rooms in the restaurants. No one from the Demitto was trained as a Volunteer or a couturier; they just worked in assistantships and on assembly lines.

He'd always taken a keen interest in the Demitto kids standing boredly at the Reapings, though. Their names were always called before the top odds Volunteered in. It seemed to Cinna like a silly formality, pulling out their names. Everyone knew they weren't going to get to play; why give them hope like that? It seemed mean.

As he tap-tapped past the Auric Café, a dark-eyed Demitto waitress' foot hit a wet spot on the slick marble patio and she slipped, spilling her tray. Half-finished bowls of saffron-yellow soup and picked-upon plates of vibrant green salad shattered on the hard ground. The girl looked up and seemed to catch Cinna's eyes with her own wide, fearful gaze.

It embarrassed Cinna, and he quickly looked away.

"Shameful," he heard someone from the café patio comment loudly. "I do so wish Districts were allowed Avoxes. They never make such mistakes."

Cinna felt his own cheeks go pink beneath the careful layers of white and gold makeup and he ducked his head, hurrying tap-tap-tap down the road. He took solace in cutting through the Cultivation Gardens, always heady with perfume and huge blossoms and ready for beautiful cuttings to be sent to the Capitol at a moment's notice. A few Demitto day-laborers were repotting a bright yellow sundragon, its petals splashed with fluorescent orange, into an AirMail tub.

Cinna waved his school badge at the heavy wrought-iron gates and stepped through quickly when the light changed and the gate flashed open. More than one of his classmates had their fingers smashed dawdling in the gate, and he needed to stay deft with a needle.

The Alterior school door was heavy and the marble steps were slippery and his crisp new boots had no traction, so it took Cinna a long minute to get the doors open and he hoped – virulent and acidic – that no one had seen him. The only people who would be at the school during the Games would be angry older Volunteers, upset that someone as young as Pyreight had bested them for the male slot, and Cinna really, really did not want to be caught and shoved headfirst down the toilets today.

Cinna tried to keep his footsteps as silent as possible as he crept through the empty white-walled school. Only the videoscreens, footage bright and fast and eerie as the cameras swept the arena for Tributes in action. The Arena this year had once been a city – a big one, almost as big as the Capitol, it looked like – before the Dark Days, and the rusted-out buildings crawled with kudzu vines and delicate tendrils of rust sending long shadows over the abandoned, cracked cement sidewalks. The sky over the Arena was a streaky, angry gray, and the water that foamed over one side of the decayed city looked angry and black and cold.

Cinna wondered if Finnick Odair was waiting by that water. As long as he survived the next day, he would have a trident to help him. Cinna felt a hot flush down his spine at the thought.

"Fuckin' Pyreight."

Cinna jumped and flattened himself against the wall as two loud, huge Volunteer Eighteens lumbered past him, each carrying a practice dummy bigger than Cinna over his shoulder.

"Can't even give the Sponsors a show for their money," whined the other. "Why the fuck would they send an underage Trib with someone like Oxsana? Fuckin' waste."

"I'd waste Oxsana," chuckled the first Eighteen lowly. "And then I'd bash her stupid fuckin' head in."

"Only way to do it!" crowed his buddy, grinning as he shouldered his way into the Gymnasium.

Cinna waited until the heavy door had shut completely before darting out from his hiding space and tap-tap-tapping fast down the hall to the Design Workshop. He grabbed his paint tins and pocketed them quickly, looking over his shoulder before slipping down the hall again.

When he reached the big videoscreen in the main corridor, he stopped flat, his feet sliding out from under him on the smooth marble and sending him down hard enough to jar his teeth in his head when he hit the floor.

Pyreight and Oxsana and the huge boy from Two had caught Finnick Odair.

Pyreight was kneeling on Finnick's chest as Finnick's feet caught Oxsana just below the ribs and his strong swimmer's legs propelled her back hard enough that she coughed up a great bubble of biley blood and was down for the count – "But not dead!" assured Claudius Templesmith excitedly – and one of Finnick's thumbs found the corner of Boy Two's eye and started prying.

Cinna could hardly watch. He hated when they played with eyes.

The boy howled and reeled back, clutching his face and kicking Finnick in the head.

The crescent blade of Pyreight's knife sank into the soft slice between two of Finnick's ribs, low on his long, brown side.

Finnick lay, unmoving, on the cement jungle ground, blood flowing from his wound in bright red rivulets like the cochineal in Cinna's #F5 paint tin.

Pyreight snickered winsomely and jumped off Finnick's chest.

"C'mon, you baby," he chided Boy Two. "He'll be dead soon enough. Let's go."

"Fucker took out my eye," seethed Boy Two. "Let me gut him."

"Don't bother," Pyreight said, waving a dismissive hand. "If he's not dead in ten minutes, Oxsana'll get him. Or a mutt will."

"What'ja wanna do about her?" asked Boy Two.

Pyreight smiled. "Leave her. She's boring as shit."

Boy Two raises his remaining good eyebrow. "Are you sure? Could be fun."

Pyreight scoffed and started jogging off towards one of the rusted-out hulls of a spiraling skyscraper. "Nah… she just lays there when she's conscious, too."

Boy Two gave Finnick a last good kick and caught up with Pyreight in two strides.

Cinna sat unmoving on the ground, fingers stuffed in his mouth in horror as he stared at Finnick Odair, beautiful naked Finnick Odair, _call me anything as long as you call me Victor_ with that _smile_, bleeding and dying and pale on the ground.

And then Finnick's eyes opened. Alert. Hurting. Fathomless ocean green.

He sat up, slowly, slowly, and pressed a hand to the wound in his side. He looked around. Saw Oxsana still lying in a puddle of her own sick a few feet away. Crawled over, took a penknife from his boot, and cut off a chunk of her long, silken, blonde hair extensions.

Finnick braided three almost-invisible strands together with one hand, the ends clutched in his straight white teeth, and pulled a thin bone awl from his pack.

Cinna gagged on his own fingers as Finnick Odair stitched his wound shut with Oxsana's hair. When the bleeding had stopped, Finnick turned, nonchalant as anything, and jammed the awl into Oxsana's jugular.

He was still walking away when the cannon sounded and his first parachute, a tiny bottle of alcoholic antiseptic, fell.

Cinna walked the most direct route home, his boots tap-tapping fast all the way, all too aware that in his fright he'd smeared his red lipstick all over his chin and smudged the white-gold base onto his cuffs. He looked a mess. When he pushed open the door, he immediately wished he could duck out unnoticed again.

Cressida and her camera crew were there, already interviewing his mother. With Finnick Odair in the mix this year, Cinna had completely forgotten the annual humiliation of these interviews. So what if his mother had been a Victor? It was so long ago, it would be easier to let everyone forget, yet Cressida insisted on these profiles every year. As though past Games would ever matter as much as the Games on now, with the technology getting better and better and the Arenas getting more creative… the old highlights were just embarrassing. So cliché.

And… it just reminded _everyone_that Persephone was really from District Eleven, of all places. That Cinna was half –

_Well_, he thought uncomfortably, squirming. She didn't really look _much_different from a lot of the Demitto workers. He'd always thought it was pretty, really, before the cocoa of her skin sallowed out to a burnished gold with the morphling. That was before Father urged her over to opillium instead. All it did was leach the color out of her irises, and that could be Remade so much more easily.

"Cinna, is that you?"

He always noticed his mother's slanted Eleven accent so much more during the Games. Sometimes he locked himself into his bathroom and practiced saying certain words – "grains, paints, growing, knowing" – over and over to make sure he wasn't saying them like her.

He loved his mother. More than anyone in the world. It was just Panem, it was just District One. Blending in was important.

"Yes," Cinna called back, hastily adjusting his cuffs. "Don't film me!"

"We won't, Cinna. The viewers don't need to see you," Cressida said, sticking her head around the doorjamb. She smiled at him. "I like the face."

He covered his smeared lips with his hands. "Don't make fun. I look terrible."

Cressida shook her bald head. "You don't. Now come give me a kiss, kiddo."

Cinna dutifully tapped over to the elegant sitting room and kissed both of Cressida's cheeks, and then his mother's. He nodded to the camera equipment.

"Did I ruin your shot? I'm sorry. I forgot you'd be here today."

"No, we hadn't started yet." Cressida smiled. "I hear you chose the Sponsorship this year."

Cinna nodded, the image of Pyreight and the Two boy pinning Finnick down still fresh in his mind. "The boy from Four."

Persephone's dull eyes flickered. "Did you see what happened to him?"

Cinna nodded. "He stitched himself up, though. With Oxsana's hair. That was really smart… I wouldn't have thought to do it."

Cressida inclined her head towards Persephone. "You did something similar in your Games, if I recall. Stitched up your partner's arm with some marsh grass, didn't you?"

Persephone nodded shortly. "It didn't seem to do much good. Let's hope the Four boy's hand was steadier than mine."

"Did Father finish the trident yet?" Cinna asked, letting Persephone brush his mussed hair out of his eyes. "It'll get to the Arena soon, right?" He paused. "It's just that Finnick's awfully smaller than that boy from Two, and the Two boy's really mad."

Persephone smiled thinly. "Cacus finished forging it this morning to your father's design. It should reach the Arena before tomorrow morning."

Cinna smiled and kissed her cheek again. "Thank you, mama."

"Cinna, do you want to stay and watch your mom's interview?" Cressida asked, lifting her camera to her shoulder.

Cinna bit his lip. "No, if that's okay. I should let Blake back inside, I put him on the balcony before I left so he wouldn't make a mess."

"Of course it's okay, sweetheart," Persephone said. She patted Cinna's arm. "You don't need to hear about my Games again. Unpleasant business."

Cinna blushed. "It's not that, it's just – "

"No, Cinna, it's alright. I don't want you to listen." Persephone's hand was a few shades darker than her son's warm wrist. She patted his arm again. "Go let poor Blake inside. I hope you've been paying attention to him."

"I am," Cinna assured her. He nodded to Cressida. "It was nice to see you again."

Cressida's lips quirked. "Always a pleasure, kiddo. Druscilla told me that you don't have a bad eye. Keep it up and maybe we can work together someday."

Cinna flushed and nodded, covering his smeared makeup again and darting out of the room, slick new shoes sliding on the marble hall.

Upstairs in his bedroom, he opened the wide balcony doors and Blake pounced into the room, happy to be off the small balcony fortified with a force field.

"Hey!" Cinna laughed, his hands rubbing through Blake's soft, white ruff, "Stop licking my makeup off!" Blake just yawned spectacularly in his face. "Phew, Blake, you stink."

Cinna pushed the mass of fur off his midsection and pulled Blake over to the videoscreen, settling down to watch more of the Games. Certainly the cameras would be on Finnick like glue after that spectacular show this morning. Blake stretched out on his back plaintively and Cinna rolled his eyes, rubbing the downy fur on Blake's pink belly.

The footage from the Arena was deceptively quiet, following a herd of chittering armadillo mutts across the bridge spanning the treacherous black river snaking through the dead city. Most of the screen was full of Persephone's face, smiling graciously and absently as she answered Cressida's kind questions.

_Of course, you won the notorious 51ST Hunger Games, the infamous 'laser steppe' Arena. It's the only time in Games history that Tributes from District Eleven and District Twelve won consecutive years. Do you think you learned anything from Haymitch Abernathy that helped you in your own Games strategy?_

Persephone laughed, a fruity, full-throated laugh that hurt Cinna's heart: it was not the laugh she had for his sleepy hair in the morning or when Blake knocked her down in the hallway with slobbery kisses. That was a high, reedy laugh like startled birds taking off from the Cultivation Garden fence in the morning. This was an actress' laugh.

"I think I did learn from Haymitch – I learned to do the opposite of what he had! What Haymitch really did was play against type for Twelve; he had that charisma, he stood out. I just tried to stick close to what I knew. If they can't catch you, they can't kill you. I really just wanted to blend in and go unnoticed, and I think that helped me succeed."

Claudius Templesmith's face burst onto the screen in another quadrant, the heralding trumpets of a turn in the Games announcing his interruption. "Cressida, Persephone, we're going to cut you short and pan over to the river, where Lobelia Peat from Twelve appears to have been snared – !"

Hanging upside-down from a pylon beneath the bridge, the big, dark girl from Twelve who had punched Finnick the day before struggled. She was caught in a net of spongy woven marsh grass, her square face darkening purple. The entire riverscape was dark: brackish purples and poisoned black and rusty red.

Finnick Odair stepped out from beneath the broken bridge, a bright spot of bronze. The little penknife from his boot cut her open easily – a long black line from her chin to the bulky waist of her uniform pants – and Cinna remembered that he'd learned once that Four had terrible huge creatures in the water that sometimes got caught in nets and had to be gutted lest they attack the fishermen. He marveled at how _sure_Finnick Odair was with killing. He wondered if Finnick had ever caught one of those ugly creatures in a net just like this.

Nothing could harm Finnick Odair. Cinna was sure of it. Nothing scared him.

The girl's cannon blasted in the sky and Cinna watched as bright gold Finnick strode away from the gray body hanging over the black river. Everything in this Arena looked the same, cold and hard, except Finnick.

Cinna had noticed Finnick Odair because Finnick stood out.

At half-past three in the morning, long after the evening's wrap-up montage, when the majority of Games coverage was Templesmith's banter with the mentors and a few key Sponsors, Cinna's comm alarm buzzed.

He rolled over groggily, rubbing his eyes, and the light from the videoscreen fell across his bed.

He sat up like a bolt, suddenly wide awake, the blood in his veins humming until he felt shaky and floating and like a wisp of light about to zoom around the ceiling:

Finnick Odair huddled beneath the rusted platform of an old elevated train from the Dark Days, its windows jagged and broken. Finnick still had no shirt and looked thinner and paler than he had in the opening ceremonies, but his slender chest was freckled with dirt and sweat in a way that Cinna found _profoundly_and unexpectedly beautiful. He wondered if that's how Finnick always looked at home in Four. Although he thought, vaguely, that he remembered learning that there was no soil in Four, only sand, like the glassworkers used.

What a strange place.

The row of silver-white stitches along Finnick's side seemed to glow in the dim light and the skin there was red and angry, but healing. The bruises beneath his eyes were dark and frightening; one of his hands sported bloody knuckles from a dust-up with the Twelve girl; his wild, bronze hair stood up like a flame.

The huge silver parachute drifted down and landed near Finnick's knees.

His brow furrowed. "For me?"

Cinna mouthed the words the way Finnick said them, tasting the famous boy's voice on his tongue. _Furr mey?_

"Of course it's for you," Cinna whispered to the screen, shifting forward on his knees until his nose was almost pressed to the glass. He shuddered as his cold hand slipped into his pajama bottoms. "Of course it's for you."

Finnick unwrapped the parcel carefully, tying its twine around his wrist like a braided bracelet. He smiled down at it and Cinna's heart thumped _he's wearing me, he's wearing me, he's wearing me_.

"Please like it," he whispered, his lips cry as he watched Finnick Odair peel back the silver wrappings. "Please like me."

Cinna came over his hand with a soft, surprised sound at the look on Finnick Odair's face the moment he saw the gold trident.

It was beautiful, to be sure. Lightweight, unbreakable steel veneered in 24-carat gold that shone with a soft, polished, almost self-aware luminescence; every inch of the long shaft etched with swirling lines reminiscent of the sea. The grip was smooth and satiny and perfectly calibrated to counterpoint the length of the arm with the heavy, uneven weight of the three knife-sharp blades.

And sharp they were. Perfectly symmetrical, too, and curved like an ancient lyre or the horns of a fierce bullocerous mutt. The tines alone could spear through a Tribute completely, in one side and out the other.

The gold light of the curved tines was reflected, upside-down, in Finnick Odair's wide, green eyes. He reached out and lifted the trident carefully, testing its weight, testing his strength. He pushed himself up to his feet in the alley below the train platform, and with a singing rush of music as the gold sliced through the air, tested the balance of the gleaming weapon.

Cinna touched the screen with a laugh caught in the back of his throat, hard again so quickly it almost hurt. "You're going to win."

Finnick's face broke into a stunningly white grin, dimpled and fair. He weighed the trident in his hands again like a treasure.

The camera zoomed in on his gleeful face and he looked straight into Cinna's eyes through the lens, his green eyes and soft kohl lashes sincere and warm and melting with gratitude.

"Thank you," he murmured, lips pink and full. "I'm so grateful to you. I'm gonna try real hard to win for you 'cause you believed in me enough to send this beautiful gift."

"I know you'll win, Finnick," Cinna answered, smiling back. "I know you'll win for me."

* * *

><p>Finnick lorded over the rusted-out wasteland after the trident arrived, trapping and spearing his opponents with a calculated intensity that made even the Gamemakers' cunning look gentle. One by one – almost District by District – Tributes died by Finnick's hand and Cinna's trident.<p>

Twelve. Ten. Nine. Five.

His own District partner, with a caress to her face.

The sickly-skinny boy from Three. Finnick tucked his broken glasses into his pocket after he was dead.

And then there were two Tributes left alive in the Arena.

Cinna's face felt hot as Pyreight fought against the barbed clinch of the net that held him upside-down over the babbling creek. All of the blood was rushing to Pyreight's face and those sharp cheekbone implants stood out, white and ugly where they cut against his skin from the inside.

Finnick Odair stepped silently out of the bushes, Cinna's gold trident shining at his side. The black and red material of his Games costume was tied around his waist and Cinna stared at the jagged row of stitches across Finnick's side. He wondered if it would leave a terrible scar. He wondered if it hurt. He wondered how his skin there would taste.

Finnick's nostrils flared for just a moment before he looked up into the leaves of the tree, right at the concealed camera, and grinned, tossing his wild hair. In the corner of the screen, a replay of Pyreight and Oxsana tackling Finnick to the ground and stabbing him flared up, Claudius Templesmith's commentary droning on about 'revenge' and 'looks like he's really getting that last laugh!'

Cinna clenched his fists and remembered how Pyreight had burnt his clothes after Games Education. He felt the blow against face when Pyreight punched him last March. He watched the blade of Pyreight's crescent knife bite into the long, smooth stretch of Finnick Odair's tan skin.

"Kill him," Cinna whispered to the screen. "Kill him for me, Finnick."

And Finnick did. The tines of the trident lodged deep under Pyreight's ribs and blood burbled from the bully's mouth, running down over his sharp white cheekbones and into his nose and his eyes and the close-up replay showed droplets coating his eyelashes like an oilslick. Cinna watched Pyreight die because _he_had sent Finnick that trident.

Finnick dipped the bloodied tines of Cinna's gold trident into the black water, anointing them with crystal-clear poison and washing the red away.

The Hovercraft whirred down over the black river and loaded Pyreight's corpse into a silver sling.

"Ladies and gentlemen, the Victor of the 65TH Hunger Games… Finnick Odair, District Four!" boomed Claudius Templesmith.

A close-up of Finnick's Tribute portrait, beaming in front of the Panem flag, unfurled across the top of the videoscreen as the real Finnick, gloriously alive at this moment, leaned against his trident staff on the muddy, rocky riverbed. The blond-stitched scar on his side oozed. His eyes were ringed in black smudges. A spatter of drying blood smeared his arms.

"As you are all aware, Mister Odair is the youngest _ever_Victor of the Hunger Games, quite a feat – "

Cinna realized that he was pressed up against the screen again, watching Finnick board the ladder of the hovercraft. He twisted, feeling hollow and full at once. Finnick was alive because Cinna had chosen him. But now Cinna would never see him again – not unless he mentored, and Four had enough Victors that he wouldn't be needed, not right away.

"Are we live with Finnick Odair?" asked Caesar Flickerman jovially on the screen.

Beside him, Claudius grinned and the screen split in two. "I do have confirmation that we have a live hookup to the hovercraft satellite and the 65TH Hunger Games Victor, Finnick Odair of District Four, is conscious, coherent, and eager to speak with us!"

"Finn, darling, are you there?" asked Caesar, almost swooning into the camera lens.

Finnick's face came up on the screen: still tired and dirty, but already looking healthier as an IV pumped morphling and nutrients into his arm. "I am here, believe it or not."

"Your first statement as Victor! How exciting! What do you have to tell Panem first, young Finnick?"

Finnick smiled, almost bashfully, and Cinna felt tears pour down his face. "Well, I guess first I should say that I'm really very glad to be going home. And, ah, I really love my family and I am really looking forward to seein' them soon, and I'm gonna work extra-hard to make up for the time I was gone? And – " he laughed shallowly. "And ah, I really have to thank again um, the person who sent me the trident. I would not be here without it. I guess without you? Ah, so – thanks…"

Finnick Odair's wide green eyes drifted shut as the morphling drip ran thick and amber through the tube.

Cinna shuddered, tears blurring his eyes, and wiped his nose on his sleeve – lamé cuffs bedamned. "You're welcome."

* * *

><p>Three days later, a subdued Cinna Midas turned fourteen. Persephone emerged from her bedroom in a bright, clear happiness that spelled that the Games were over, and she kissed Cinna's hair and spoiled him before breakfast, a new bolero jacket with luminescent scales and matching boots to wear for his birthday dinner.<p>

Father would be coming home for dinner.

Cinna knew that meant that his mother's joy would be short-lived, but he was glad to see her smile. The Games were hard for her.

Sometimes it seemed like life was hard for her, but he couldn't understand why. She was a Victor. She was married to _the_Glamor Midas. And even aside from his legacy and his money, she had her own – she was still a Victor, and Cinna knew how nice those houses in the Victor's Village were. He'd seen the clothes that Cashmere and Gloss wore in the village, hand-stitched and perfectly formed and made just for them by Hemant and Brabantio.

"Simoens," Persephone had smiled as she draped the bolero over Cinna's shoulders. "But someday your designs will be more beautiful." She tapped his nose. "And even more expensive."

Cinna flushed. "Thank you, Mama."

They went to the outdoor café for lunch, despite the looks Persephone always got there. Cinna resolved to hide his embarrassment for the sake of confit lemon groosling, and because – it was so rare for his mother to agree to go outside at all. She said that it was claustrophobic in One.

After lunch, Persephone's smile faded and she retired to her room to dress for dinner and reapply her face for the guests. Cinna hung his jacket and took Blake out to the yard, letting him paw at the statues and slide across the slippery marble on his big paws.

The sun had almost finished setting when the comm buzzer in the yard announced that Cinna's father and his friends had returned from the Capitol to herald the end of the Games and, to a lesser extent, Cinna's birthday.

Cinna rushed up to his room to stow Blake in his run and change back into his Simoens bolero, boots, and check that his face was painted on cleanly after an afternoon in the yard. He raced down the stairs and skidded a little on the slick floor just as one of the Demitto night-maids opened the front door and Glamor's guests came pouring through.

"Cinnabar," said his father sharply, holding out a hand. Cinna shook it. "Happy birthday."

"Thank you, Father." He forced a small smile onto his face, trying to keep it as manly – and as little boyish – as he knew how.

His smile for the next man through the door was real.

Coriolanus Snow patted Cinna's cheek genially. "Happy birthday, Cinna. I'm sorry there are no more Games for you to enjoy today... but I think you chose a lovely winner, don't you?"

Cinna smiled, feeling a little hollow, and shrugged. "I suppose so. I don't really like the Games so much as the opening ceremonies. I like the costumes. The designers this year were very good."

He didn't say, _they made me think._

Lanus smiled at Cinna's words before snapping his fingers and directing his Avoxes to carry in the huge sides of luxury meats for the meal and Lanus' luggage for the night.

The rest of the coterie – the silversmith, Lupa, and the diamondcutter, Adamantina; Plutarch Heavensbee, the muttations coordinator; Cressida and her film crew. Claudius and his wife, Annika; Caesar Flickerman.

Cinna himself didn't really have any guests. There was no one at school that he really wanted to invite, and the only person he really wanted to see –

He was probably on a train winding south towards Four.

The food was at once richer and blander than Cinna would have liked – everything made to Lanus' taste, by his chefs, and using many components he'd brought with him from the Capitol cache; "a politician can't ever be too careful about what he eats, Cinna, remember that." Cinna picked at his chicken… a strange meat; no flavor, too pale, a specific delicacy of the Presidency. Cinna couldn't really see why. The talk around him chattered about the financial logistics of the city Arena and political factions that he knew nothing about. He may as well have not been there at all.

He was just wondering if anyone at the table remembered either his birthday or his presence when his father stood to make a toast.

"Well, Cinnabar Midas, you are a _very_lucky boy. The Capitol has always been good to our family – " Glamor nodded in deference to President Snow at his side – "and we are always grateful for the generosity and mercy they choose to show us. And you get to reap the rewards tonight, dear boy, with a very special birthday gift all the way from the Capitol."

Cinna looked up, all round eyes and surprise. A new drafting desk? Silk from District Eight? Maybe he could shadow Druscilla again like he did last year; he didn't think he got in the way much…

"Thank you," he breathed obediently, inclining his head to Lanus.

Coriolanus Snow smiled indulgently. "My Avoxes were instructed to deliver it to your room." _So no shadowing Druscilla._"I do hope you make full use of it."

"Thank you, sir," Cinna said respectfully, wondering when he would be allowed to leave the table and its mind-numbingly boring adult talk of politics and promotions and Plutarch's speechmaking about Games theory.

He sat patiently, though, chiming in where appropriate with _hmm_s and _oh, yes_es for another hour as the food dwindled. Persephone eventually leaned over and stroked his hair back from his face and kissed his forehead, giving him permission with a nod to leave the table.

Cinna barely paused to kiss her cheek before tap-tap-tapping his way up the stairs, charting out costumes for Four: seashells and skin and sunshine, silk and pearls and drops of diamond. He could learn to pleat in fans if there was enough new silk, or mix the exact green of Finnick's eyes if there were new paints, or –

Cinna skidded to a stop in his bedroom doorway, holding onto the white frame so he didn't fall flat on his face. The nearly-naked boy sitting on Cinna's bed looked up, blushed bright red, and dropped his head. He turned the golden trident over in his hands.

"You – you – y-you're Finnick Odair," Cinna said, shocked. "I – I sent you your trident."

Finnick looked at his feet. "Thanks."

Cinna nodded. "You're welcome." He paused. This was harder than he thought it would be. There didn't seem to be enough words to say – _you're brave? You're beautiful? I think I'm in love with you and you have no idea who I am? Was it exciting? Was it terrible? Are you going to kill me? Because I might let you, Finnick Odair._

"It's my birthday today," Cinna offered. "I'm fourteen."

Finnick Odair smiled. "It's my birthday, too. But I'm fifteen." His smile faltered. "If the Games had gone on another week, I wouldn't be the youngest Victor."

Cinna didn't know what to say. "That's true." He paused, low and painful, his heart aching with all of the things he wanted to say and to do and having none of the courage. "Do you want some cake?"

Finnick blinked. "You have cake? At your _house_?"

Cinna nodded. "It's a birthday cake." He paused again. "Don't you have birthday cake in District Four?"

Finnick Odair shook his head. "I've never had cake."

"Oh." Cinna stared at him, trying to find the line along his side that was stitched shut with Oxsana's blonde silk hair.

"I'd like some cake," Finnick said, with the raw, hungry undertone in his voice that Cinna associated with the Tributes from lesser Districts in their interviews – Elevens and Twelves and Sixes. Not Victors from Four.

Cinna nodded and jumped up. He touched the buzzer for the intercom in the wall. "Can we get some cake?"

The fliptable opened and two huge slices of pure white cake with a soft frozen filling and fluffy gold icing appeared.

Finnick's eyes were wide. "That's all for us?"

"There's more downstairs," Cinna said, picking up the plates with shaking hands and hoping against all hope that he didn't drop cake on Finnick Odair. _Although maybe he could lick it off – no, _no_, too hard to hide in these pants…!_"I mean, if you like it and want more cake later."

Finnick looked bewildered, staring from the cake to Cinna and back again. He blinked and shook once like he was flicking off water and seemed to gather himself.

Cinna set the plate of cake down on Finnick's knee.

Finnick's eyes narrowed as he reached out to rub his thumb across Cinna's cheek, smudging the painstaking shading of pink and coral and gold shimmer along his cheekbones. "Why are you wearing this?"

Cinna blinked at him and mouthed wordlessly. _Finnick Odair was touching him._

Finnick laughed and shook his head, looking at the stripe of pink on his thumb and working it off against the rest of his fingers. "I'll never understand why everybody west of Eight and north of Four doesn't want to look like _people_anymore. I feel like I'm talking to a doll."

"I can wash it off," Cinna offered, reaching up to touch his own carefully manicured face in dismay. Before Finnick could answer, he'd spun on his heel and rushed into his bath, catching the door at the last second to keep it from slamming.

Cinna's heart pounded up against his ribs, jostling around the rich meal he'd eaten and making him feel clammy and shaky and sick.

Finnick Odair was in his bedroom.

Finnick Odair was sitting on his bed.

Finnick Odair thought he didn't even look like a _person_.

Cinna leaned up against his cold marble counter, trying to remember his mother's breathing exercises – in through the nose, out through the mouth, in through the nose – and turned the silver taps on his sink, letting the water run in cold.

He took a last look at the white lacquer, the gold shimmer and rose striped blush, long blue-and-black peacock eyelashes and sharp stripe of a red mouth, took a deep breath, and splashed cold water on his face. His eyelashes looked like spiders skittering down the drain.

By the time his face was cleaned and conditioned, Cinna thought he looked about – well, thirteen years old. Younger, even. A First Schooler. And Finnick Odair was still sitting in his room – _oh, please, oh, please_– waiting for him.

He brushed his bangs out of his face, took a last sullen look in the mirror at his glowing pale face and too-narrow green eyes, and ducked back into his room.

"That's so much better," Finnick said, looking up from where he was picking at the tines of his trident. "Now you look like a real boy."

Cinna made a noise like an upset duck and brushed his bangs over his face again, hoping that his blush didn't give him away.

"So your dad's the Mayor?" Finnick asked, swinging his feet as he demolished the second slice of cake.

"Yeah," Cinna said, shrugging one shoulder. _Look nonchalant. Look cool._"But he's mostly a goldsmith. The Capitol does most of the mayor stuff for him. Trials and that."

"Are you going to be a goldsmith?" Finnick asked, sucking frosting off his fingers.

Cinna smiled and shook his head. "No. I want to be a couturier."

"What's that?"

"A fashion designer. I want to style for the Games and for runway shows and I want to have my own shop in the Capitol and make dresses that everyone in Panem wants to buy," Cinna said with relish. "That's why I have the dress forms." He pointed.

"Is that what those are for?" Finnick asked. He ate some crumbs off his thumb greedily, sweeping more off the plate before he'd even swallowed. "I thought they might've just been big dolls or somethin'."

"I don't play with dolls," Cinna said indignantly. "I'm not a girl."

"Well, you wear pink make-up and eyelashes." Finnick said looking up. His eyes were wide. "I don't know."

Cinna frowned and ran the back of his hand over his bare face. "Everyone who's anyone wears make-up. That's what Caesar says in the magazines."

Finnick frowned. "I was so mad when they made me wear it for the interviews and stuff. It's itchy and it smells bad. And I looked stupid in those costumes."

"No, you didn't," Cinna breathed, "You looked – I mean, you… I just – " He took a deep breath. "You didn't look stupid, is all. You looked really good."

The tops of Finnick's ears turned red. "Well, if it got me that trident and I get to go home… I guess it was okay."

Cinna's head wobbled in an absurd nod. "Do you – um, do you want more cake?"

Finnick looked over and grinned. "Yeah. Is there really more?"

"Yeah, of course. There's a whole cake." Cinna pressed the button for more and the table slid open, revealing two more slices. Finnick took both. "Did you really never have cake in District Four?"

Finnick shook his head, mouth full. "Uh-uh. But my mom makes really good lemaranja candy, for our birthdays and on Reaping Day. I didn't get to have any this year, though. But maybe we'll have it when I get home."

Cinna smiled. "I bet your family will be happy you won."

Finnick's smile drooped a little. He swallowed. "Maybe. I hope they didn't watch me, though. I wish _no one_watched me." His gemerald green eyes darkened and his fork dragged listlessly through the cake on his plate. "I just want to go home and… I want to buy a boat. With my winnings." He smiled. "With a big deck to lay out on. And a cabin with windows. And I want orange sails."

"Doesn't your family have a boat?" Cinna asked, staring at the curve of Finnick's lip when he smiled and just how _big_his hands were as he waved them around, sketching a boat in the air. There were calluses on the heels of his palms and all along each of his fingers. Cinna had never considered that. Calluses.

"Yeah," Finnick said. "But I want my own, so I can go out with my friends and like girls and stuff. My parents' boats are for working, and I don't know if I'm allowed to be a fisherman now. But I hope so. I'm not really good at anything else."

"Your parents are fishermen?"

Cinna wrinkled his nose. He'd assumed Finnick was a Volunteer like most Victors from Four, whose parents worked in pearl refinery or directed shipping to Nine for inspections. The photos he'd seen in his textbooks of fishermen always looked… rough.

Finnick laughed. "'Course. Everyone in Four is a – " He caught off suddenly, cake falling to the floor. Finnick blanched and scrambled to his feet, backing up over the length of the bed, balancing on the prow of the headboard like he could scale the wall and keep climbing away. "Mutt!" He choked, pointing. "There's a – in your _house_, a mutt – get away – !"

Cinna looked over to the corner and laughed. "That's not a mutt! That's Blake. He's my pet." He walked over and knelt, circling his arms around Blake's huge, soft neck.

Finnick's eyes were round as saucers. "What is it?"

"A white tiger," Cinna said, petting the thick, warm fur around Blake's ruff. "Plutarch gave him to me for my birthday last year. He rescued him from District Ten."

Finnick Odair didn't climb down from the headboard. "There are no animals like that that are real. They're all mutts."

"He's real," Cinna said indignantly. "He's a Presidential Bengal. Mutts aren't edible. He wouldn't have been in Ten if he were a mutt." He tried out a smile at Finnick Odair. "He's nice. See, his teeth are filed down and everything. Get down."

Finnick gingerly stepped down from the headboard, but kept his trident clutched in his hands. "Why did you get it?"

Cinna shrugged and rubbed Blake's ruff. "I don't know. Plutarch just said his name's Blake and I could have him."

"What does he do?" Finnick asked, eying the tiger warily.

Cinna shrugged. "I don't know. Eats and sleeps, mostly."

"No, I mean, how does he help your dad make gold?" Finnick asked, looking over the trident.

"He doesn't," Cinna shook his head. "He's just my pet. Don't you have pets?"

"Not really," Finnick said, looking ruefully to the cake on the floor. "Mags, she's my mentor, she has a dog to watch over her 'cause she's really old. And my grandma does, too, and she lives in my house, so I guess I got a dog. But it doesn't have a name or nothing."

"Well, Blake is really just a big cat," Cinna said. "He can't hurt you." He paused. "Nothing could hurt you."

Finnick shook his head. He pulled his knees up to his chest. "I got a Remake after the Games, but it still hurts where that guy stabbed me."

"His name was Pyreight," Cinna said, patting Blake's flank and guiding him out of the room. "He burned my clothes once at school after Games education. But you killed him with my trident." He smiled.

Finnick pulled at his lip, his eyes faraway. "Well, I guess I'm glad he wasn't nice."

"He wasn't nice at all," Cinna agreed. "Thanks for killing him for me."

Finnick's head jerked up. He looked puzzled and his mouth opened and shut, floundering. Then his eyes narrowed and he began to laugh. "That's – that's a good one."

Cinna blinked, confused, but smiled back anyway and clambered up onto the bed again beside Finnick. Finnick's head fell back as he laughed and laughed, raucous and raw, and Cinna took a deep breath and put his hand on Finnick's knee.

Finnick fell abruptly silent and looked to Cinna with the reflexes of a gladiator straight from combat. "What are you doing?"

Cinna blinked. "I – "

"Look, I'm – thanks for the trident, but… and the cake, I mean, but I'm – " Finnick's eyes narrowed. "Do you like… like boys?"

Cinna squeaked and pulled his hand back, burnt.

Finnick curled his knees up to his chest again and looked out towards the balcony window, Blake the white tiger prowling back and forth on the pink-veined marble.

"Are you leaving?" Cinna asked finally, after the crush of silence became unbearable.

Finnick shook his head. "No. President Snow said we were staying here tonight."

"Oh."

Outside the windows, Blake's claws clicked against the marble, his thick fur hushing against the cold glass when he slid on the glossy surface.

"Is that why you sent the trident?" Finnick asked finally, not looking at Cinna. "You thought I'm – that I was… too?"

"I don't know," Cinna mumbled. "I sent it 'cause you looked… I don't know. I just wanted you to win."

Finnick Odair nodded again, still looking at his feet.

"Do you want some pajamas?" Cinna asked finally, feeling deflated and aching and more embarrassed than he knew had been possible before tonight.

Finnick nodded.

Cinna got up slowly and pulled a set of striped pajamas from his armoire. He handed them to Finnick without looking at him.

"I'm not gonna – you know," he spluttered. "Try anything."

Finnick shook his head hurriedly. "No, I know. I don't think you're… you know, that you'd do that to me. It's just… it's been a long couple of months."

Cinna bit his lip and looked at the floor. Finnick Odair's hand reached out and gently patted Cinna's arm.

"It's okay. If it helps, I think you have great taste…"

Cinna glanced up and there, for a second, was a flash of the smug, grinning, gorgeous boy who'd charmed his way into winning: lopsided grin, defiant sparkle in his ocean-green eyes, wild waves of bronze hair.

And Cinna was wretchedly in love with that boy, so he smiled back.

* * *

><p>"Did you have a nice night with Finnick, dear?" asked Persephone, smiling at Cinna over the little embossed chest of opillium paraphernalia.<p>

Cinna grinned bashfully and nodded. "I did, Mama. He's mostly really nice."

Persephone's smile was thin and runny, like it was painted on so long ago that it had faded. "That's very good, sweetheart. Coriolanus will be so glad to hear that." She patted Cinna's clean cheek. "Go put on your face, Cinna. Time to look presentable."

Later, when the curtains were all drawn to keep out the blinding glare of the noon sun reflecting off tons of polished stone outside, Cinna leaned against the cold marble post of his parents' enormous bed, watching his mother pack her bags. He let the old stone leach the sticky summer heat from the back of his neck. She hadn't yet styled her hair for the trip, and it fell down her back in a long, soft coil. It had one gentle gray streak beneath her ear, and Cinna felt sad and strange that his mother could ever get old.

"Mama?" he asked, tilting his head to cool the other side of his face. "Isn't Eleven awfully… poor?"

Persephone looked up from her bags. "It is. Not everyone is as fortunate as your father and his friends, Cinna."

"I know," Cinna said, thinking of Finnick's words about his parents' weeks at sea on a smelly boat. "But why do you go back? It can't be nice there."

Persephone smiled and sat down on the bed, blowing cool air across her son's sweaty neck. "It's nice because it's home. It's very beautiful there, too. Different than it is here. The peacharines are in season now and all of the air will smell sweet… and the trees are so pretty, with pink flowers and fruit. And it's so much sweeter before Nine processes it." Her eyes flickered. "When I was a girl we would eat it right off the tree, so ripe you got juice all down your chin. And the corn is taller than the eye can see, it's amazing…"

Cinna smiled. "It sounds nice." He paused. "Do you like living here?"

Persephone blinked. She smiled at Cinna and swept his long bangs from his face. "I love you, and I am happy living wherever you are." She patted his cheek and stood again, her skirts swishing as she headed back to her closet. "That's what matters."

Cinna sighed, shifting. He watched as she smoothed the mulberry silk of a day dress into her bags.

"Can I come with you?" Cinna asked suddenly.

Persephone looked up, her mouth a round 'O' of surprise. "Oh – sweetheart – you know you can't leave the District yet, don't you?"

"Lanus would let me," Cinna said, barreling onwards. "If Father asked him. Would you want me to come with you? If I could?"

Persephone smiled sadly. "Why would you even want to come to Eleven, sweetheart? You hate the heat and the trip is so long, and you wouldn't be able to bring your drafting desk."

"I want to see the flowers," Cinna said, shrugging. "I want to see where you came from. I want to see everywhere in Panem, I think, when I grow up. Because if I want to style for the Games, then I should see the places I'm styling, shouldn't I?" He paused. "Do your parents live in Eleven still?"

Persephone hesitated. "Yes, they do."

"Well, I want to meet them," Cinna said confidently. "They can't be worse than Grandmatron and Grandfather."

Persephone's head snapped up. "My parents are lovely. There are no kinder people anywhere in Panem." She looked inexplicably sad. "I think they _would_love you. I think you would like them."

"Then bring me with you," Cinna asked. "Please?"

Persephone closed her suitcase and kissed his forehead gently. "I can't." She shook her head. "I'm sorry."

She bustled out of the room with the bags, Cinna following her down the long, twisted staircase.

"What are they like?" he asked, sidestepping the Demitto day-maid. "Your parents."

Persephone turned. "Why are you so curious all of a sudden, sweetheart?"

Cinna shrugged. "Finnick told me about his family. It's just different than it is here, isn't it? In Eleven? It's different in Four, and they're even still a Volunteer District. So it must be different in Eleven, too. And… they're my grandparents, and I've never met them. Finnick's grandparents live with him, in his house."

Persephone smiled knowingly. "So this is about Finnick?"

Cinna blushed. "I don't know. No. Not really. He just – he said things that made me think."

"You seem to have talked to him a lot while he was here," Persephone said carefully, settling the bag of opillium paraphernalia on top of the rest of her luggage.

"I guess so," Cinna said. "He was kind of shy at first. And I was nervous. But it was nice to talk to him, after a while."

"Is that all you did?" Persephone asked. "Talk to each other?"

"Well, we had cake. And played with Blake."

Persephone's lips paled. "Did you tell Coriolanus or your father?"

"No," Cinna said. "They don't really ask me things very much. And I don't want to bother them." He paused. "You know, two months with only Father around is really boring. Do you really have to go for so long?"

Persephone looked distracted as she turned to the mirrors on the wall and adjusted her betrothal necklace, the dozen garnets in its pendant catching the light. "I go for the summer, Cinna. You know that."

* * *

><p>Finnick Odair was on broadcast almost every day that year. Every time he was shown, he carried Cinna's trident, clutched in his palm. It had become a part of him, as much as his lopsided smirk or that wild tangle of bronze hair. As a celebrity judge on The Fashion Games, modeling the creations of all its (lucky, lucky) contestants and holding court over the finale in a tiny scalloped toga lined in iridescent luster, trident resting across his lap. Ringing the opening bell for the Capitol Exchange in painted-on pinstripes and a jaunty cap, trident at his side.<p>

Commentating for the 66TH Hunger Games, his skin glittering and glistening gold and dotted with tiny seashells, trident in hand. Commanding. Strong. Coaching his girl Tribute, Mehgann something, into a win.

Finnick Odair was perfect. The Games were so much less interesting without him dominating play, but Cinna clung to his videoscreen all the same, gulping down the little bits of Finnick that he was given, burning with pride that… even if things hadn't gone as he'd maybe hoped, in his heart of hearts, _he'd met Finnick Odair, and spent a night with him_. Finnick had worn his pajamas.

It was the only pair Cinna wore now. More often than not, he woke up stuck to them.

He knew that he wouldn't see Finnick again – not unless he made it out of One and into a designing job in the Capitol.

School was easier without Pyreight. And everyone knew that the Midas goldsmith had made that trident.

At school, it felt like… he belonged to Finnick, or like Finnick belonged to him. Pyreight had been popular, loved, able to get away with bullying Cinna for years and no one did anything about it, and now he was dead because Cinna had given Finnick the tools for the job. It was like a door had opened and letters spelling 'Cinna Midas, you can make it back to the Capitol to be his stylist' shone out.

He had his parents send a gold-plated steel shield in the shape of a gorgon to each of Finnick's Tributes. He wondered if Finnick realized the craftsmanship from the etching on his trident.

When Finnick grinned into the cameras and gave a little wink of thanks as the parachutes were delivered, Cinna warmed, knowing that Finnick did remember him, and did understand. Those shields were Cinna's way of saying, _I'm still betting on you_.

When he pulled Mehgann onto the Hovercraft, she dropped the Midas shield at Finnick's feet, threw her arms around him, and kissed him hard on the mouth. Finnick had pulled away with a sweetly pitying look and bent to pick up the shield, and Cinna knew, he _knew_that Finnick meant that he couldn't kiss her so long as Cinna was thinking of him.

He didn't care how. Finnick Odair could pity him. That was okay.

Three days later, Cinna opened his bedroom door to find Finnick Odair on his bed again – not sitting awkwardly, examining the tines of a trident, but lounging like he belonged there (and _oh, he belonged there_), the trident propped up against the headboard. Cinna stopped short in the door again, taken aback by how much _taller_Finnick looked now and how perfectly fine-tuned his muscles. Cinna was taller, too, but thought he looked like he'd been stretched out and his muscles and bones hadn't quite communicated well about the directions they wanted to go. Finnick by contrast was pristine.

"Hi," Cinna said, standing a little straighter, sweeping his long, brown bangs out of his eyes. "When did you get here?"

Finnick stretched languorously, like all the best muscles were sore in all the best ways. His sunkissed skin slid over the bedclothes. "Just a while ago. I let your tiger outside, I hope that's okay."

Cinna nodded, blinking, watching the muscles shift in Finnick's chest as he ran a huge hand through his wild halo of bronze hair.

"Is that okay?" Finnick repeated, a little smirk on his lips. His hand slid down his chest to rest low between his hips.

"Yeah," Cinna sputtered. "Yeah… that's fine."

Finnick tilted his head and smiled, his eyes low and dark. "Why are you all the way over there?" He shifted his hips. "Come on over here, you haven't even properly said hello."

Cinna stepped over the threshold and smiled timidly back. "I didn't think you'd – I don't know what I thought." He paused. "Um, congratulations on the, um, the girl."

Finnick looked politely perplexed. "The – oh, of course, Mehgann. Well, she couldn't have won without your shield, so – congratulations on the girl yourself." He winked and Cinna felt his cheeks flush hot.

Finnick pushed himself up and sat cross-legged and playful on Cinna's bedspread. "You're still so far away. I don't bite, I'm not Enobaria."

He raised an eyebrow and Cinna giggled, nerves pouring out of his throat as he walked to sit on the edge of the bed.

Finnick put his hand on Cinna's knee, suggestive and hot on the inside of his skinny thigh.

"What are you doing?" Cinna asked, tensing.

Finnick bit his lip and looked up at Cinna through long, sinfully dark eyelashes. "Don't you know?"

Cinna's stomach turned over. "You don't – you know. You don't like boys."

Finnick's fingers rubbed along the ticklish side of Cinna's knee. "Maybe I just like you." He looked up and smiled at Cinna. His pupils were huge and wet. "Come on; let me make up for last year."

He licked his lip.

"I'm only fifteen," Cinna said, his voice trembling. "I'm not legal for another year."

Finnick smirked winsomely. "Oh, a year is nothing. And I'm here now." He pouted. "Don't you want me? You used to…"

Cinna nodded, heart racing, terrified. "I do. I want you so much."

Finnick Odair laughed lowly and slung a leg over Cinna's lap, straddling his waist. "You're the cutest little thing, you know that?" He flattened a callused hand over Cinna's spindly chest. "You're gonna hyperventilate if you don't calm down a little."

"I can't," Cinna whispered, his hands shaking at his sides.

Finnick's eyes warmed. "I remember being that nervous."

"Really?" Cinna asked, swallowing hard. He looked up at Finnick Odair's perfect, sharp-chiseled face. "I can't imagine you ever being nervous."

Finnick closed his eyes and slid his hands down Cinna's arms, wrapping his fingers around Cinna's wrists. "Just touch me. Don't think. It makes it better if you don't think."

Cinna's pale palm fluttered over the patch of Finnick's side that hid his brave scar. Cinna stared in wonderment. "I don't think I can stop thinking about you."

"You really are sweet," Finnick Odair murmured winsomely, touching his lips to the bony curve of Cinna's jaw.

Cinna heard himself babbling embarrassing secrets as Finnick's sure hands unhooked the intricate frogs of his blue brocade jacket and slipped gold buttons from their holes in the starched shirt beneath. He heard himself telling Finnick all about watching him in broadcast every day, and how he was so jealous of him for meeting everyone on The Fashion Games and how jealous he was of them for getting to dress him.

He gasped and fell back against the pillows, panting, as Finnick's mouth followed the path of his hands downwards, over Cinna's chest and tonguing at Cinna's skinny hips.

He would never be able to get out of his head the image of Finnick Odair's wild bronze hair bobbing in his lap. For real. Not in a dream. Not in a fantasy. _Real._

He whimpered when Finnick pulled away and bit at Cinna's hipbone, slithering back up Cinna's skinny body.

"Ready?" Finnick sang, low and gravelly in the back of his throat, fingers sliding as Cinna let out a yelp.

"I – you don't have to – " Cinna said shakily, arching against Finnick's hand.

"I do have to," Finnick hummed, teeth pressing dark imprints into Cinna's collarbone. "I wouldn't be alive if it weren't for you."

"It hurts," Cinna squeaked, hiding his face in Finnick's shoulder.

"Just relax, baby," Finnick said smoothly, not stopping. "Don't you trust me?"

Cinna pressed his mouth into the side of Finnick Odair's neck, tasting the salt of his sweat and the gently soapy taste of Capitol-treated skin, burning hot against his lips. He could feel Finnick's pulse.

"I love you," he murmured, overwhelmed. "I love you so much, Finnick, you have no idea, I've been in love with you since the moment I saw you, and you were so beautiful and strong and brave and I just – I love you, and – "

"Shhh," Finnick hushed smoothly, touching the sharp curve of his jaw to Cinna's lips. "Shhhh, it's okay."

"I know," Cinna wobbled. "I just love you."

Finnick's sultry mouth smiled and he ran his thumb over Cinna's cheek. "I know, baby. I love you, too."

* * *

><p>Persephone's colorless eyes searched Cinna's face carefully the next morning as he watched her pack her bags.<p>

"Did you have a nice time with Finnick this year?" she asked, her voice a little higher than usual.

Cinna flushed and knotted his fingers together, biting his lip to hold in all of the whoops of joy that threatened to burst out of him. "He loves me back."

Persephone looked down into her suitcase. "I'm sure he finds you very kind, sweetheart, because you are, but – "

"No," Cinna insisted, looking up from under his lashes. "He loves me. He said it. He said the words right back to me. He loves me."

His mother didn't look up. "I'm glad that you're so happy. He's just what you wanted."

Cinna beamed down towards his shoes, toes and fingers and knees all knit together as he tried his damnedest not to combust. "He is."

Persephone nodded stiffly. "Are you going to ask Father to move him here for you?"

"No," Cinna said, aghast, "No, he loves it in Four. That's where his family is. And he's got all these brothers and sisters and stuff that he takes care of, and I couldn't ask him to leave them."

Persephone's eyes blazed as she clicked her suitcases shut and strode across her room in three long steps. She pulled Cinna's head down and kissed his forehead hard.

"You have a good heart, Cinna. Don't lose that. Please."

Cinna nodded, baffled, into his mother's shoulder. "I won't."

Persephone hugged her son tightly for a long time, humming nonsense melodies into his hair. Then she pulled back, her strange, colorless eyes wet, and said, "Why don't you get Blake and we can all sit in the Cultivation Gardens until it's time for the train?"

"He's not allowed back in the Cultivation Garden," Cinna said, blushing. "On account of how he ate all those nasturtiuraniums." Her face fell. "But I'll go with you," Cinna added quickly. "We can go. I'd love to go with you."

"Why don't we just sit in the yard?" Persephone asked, blinking. "Bring Blake down."

Cinna shrugged. "Okay. I'll see you outside."

Persephone kissed her son's head again. "I am glad that you're happy, Cinna. And you deserve to be loved."

Cinna smiled bashfully again and straightened his cuffs as he ducked out of the room. "Thanks."

The time while Persephone was away passed as it always did for Cinna: empty mornings of sketching at his drafting desk, empty afternoons of tailoring new outfits for the school year on his dressforms, empty evenings of walking Blake around the yard or reading _The Classic Literature (v. I - IV; Snow)_or a couture magazine at a corner table at the café. Three times, he very nearly let himself wander off the marble path into the Demitto, but lost his nerve at the last second and scurried back to the familiarity of his own Alterior home, in his own cozy room that reminded him of Finnick Odair at every glance.

So while his mother was in Eleven, Cinna's nights were spent watching broadcasts to his heart's content. The Fashion Games. Historical dramas of the atrocities of the Dark Days – mobs of unwashed people marching in the streets, giant silver airships falling out of the sky, weapons that put holes in people from hundreds of feet away. His mother never let him watch those. Gruesome murder reenactment shows – she never liked those, either.

Cinna didn't know her opinion on the late-night broadcasts, and he didn't really want to have to ask, but he suspected she wouldn't approve of those either. He'd never actually gotten up the guts to watch one before – he started giggling and feeling heartsick and guilty as soon as then distinctive opening music began – but tonight was different. Tonight was the 'acting' debut of _the_Finnick Odair.

Late – very late – the broadcast rolled over to a high-budget broadcast, a pornographic story set in the Dark Days when everyone had terrible fashion (Long pants made of blue denim? On _everyone_? What was the point of living?) and there was no Panem, only tiny nation-states in disarray.

Finnick Odair didn't look horrible in those blue denim pants. On him, they looked –

Cinna sighed and slid his hand down below the covers, already oversensitive from remembering Finnick's mouth and there it was, on the screen, and anyone in Panem could see it but they couldn't have it – it was his.

The gold trident rested across a ridiculous settee in the background. Finnick smiled and unzipped the blue denim pants, stepping out of them and smiling roguishly to the camera. He ran his huge hands through his hair and tilted his hips and sighed and…

Cinna licked his lip, trying to match the pace of his hand to Finnick's, trying to follow Finnick's movements so it would be like they were touching each other.

He hadn't really gotten to do that. Touch Finnick.

Finnick's eyes drifted shut as his head fell back, lip caught between his teeth, but the camera panned over him and his green eyes opened and locked on Cinna's eyes through the videoscreen and Cinna blushed –

And then a woman stepped into the screen. Older. Rounder. Amber-skinned and etched all over with sharp lines, like a segmented insect.

She was a familiar face from Cinna's fashion magazines. Claudius Templesmith's wife.

"Finn, darling," she rasped in her smoke-eaten voice, "Let me finish that for you."

Finnick smirked and rested his hands on the ledge behind him, offering his hips forward. "Whatever you wanna do."

Cinna deflated and felt cold and dirty and embarrassed when Annika Templesmith knelt at Finnick's feet and sucked him into her mouth, letting Finnick piston his hips hard. The line of his muscles and the soft brown sheen of his skin was beautiful, even if Annika was horrific, and if Cinna closed one eye, then –

Well, there was just Finnick again, and that was fine.

But the broadcast was long and surprisingly acrobatic for a woman of Annika's size, and eventually Cinna gave up on trying to be titillated and settled for a sort of sick, painful settling of curiosity.

Why was Finnick even doing this? Acting wasn't his Talent. Poetry was. This wasn't poetic.

Not at all.

Finnick was above Annika, her round leg over his shoulder as the powerful flat muscles of his back shifted in the unnatural studio light, when she said it.

"I love you, Finn, fuck, I love you, I love you – "

Finnick's sultry mouth smiled and he ran his thumb over the woman's cheek. "I know, baby. I love you, too."

The words buzzed in Cinna's ears like angry metallic whirr, speeding up until it was a sort of mocking song, . His stomach hurt. He clicked off the videoscreen, feeling like he was moving through molten lead, and stared at the dull black glow in the silence.

Cinna cried himself to sleep for three nights in a row.

On the fourth day, he woke up to the filed-down teeth of a bored tiger gnawing at his arm, a head full of grease like he'd never known before, and damp pillow-creases in his face that would take a double-dose of concealer to hide. He pried his arm free, patted Blake's head, and sat up with a new sort of resolve in the pit of his stomach.

"Father?" he asked timidly, after he was dressed and his face cleared and his gold eyeliner slicked on, "Do you mind if I – I mean, are you busy?"

"I'm always busy, Cinnabar," Glamor Midas said, examining the setting pins in a gold ring with his loupe. "That's the mark of a successful man."

"Yes, sir, I know," Cinna said politely. "Um, I was just wondering – if you had any pieces for Lanus that he was coming out here to pick up. Soon."

Glamor smiled knowingly and set down the loupe. "You enjoyed Finnick Odair, eh?"

Cinna blushed purple, but kept his head high and tried to look on steadily. "Yes, sir, I suppose that is what I am actually… asking. But I know that his place is in Four until he's called on for the next Games as a Mentor."

Glamor picked up the loupe again and fitted it to his eye. "I remember feeling exactly what way about your mother before we moved her out of that pitiful District. If Lanus is willing to let Finnick come out for a night or two, I'd be happy to work something out." He shifted from examining the ring to examining a pendant. "I am glad to hear that, Cinnabar, though I suspect you don't want to hear it from me. After that first visit… I was worried about you."

Cinna frowned. "Oh… well, I appreciate your willingness to, um, help. I'll leave you to your work."

Glamor Midas inclined his head and looked away from his son, back to his gold.

* * *

><p>In the midst of the Victory Tour for his girl champion, Finnick Odair appeared in Cinna's bedroom again. This time he dispensed of all pleasantries and was already naked when Cinna got back to his bedroom, only slightly angry-tipsy on the cocktails that his father said he was finally old enough to drink.<p>

Cinna was too surprised to do much when Finnick pulled him into bed.

As angry as he was, it was Finnick Odair. And Cinna loved him to destruction.

"Finnick?" Cinna asked, sliding his hand over the other boy's face, "Why don't you kiss me?"

"I kiss you," muttered Finnick, his eyes still closed. "I kiss you _all_over."

"No," Cinna murmured, "I mean, you never kiss me on the lips. Like, a real kiss."

Finnick didn't answer.

"I saw you," Cinna said finally, baldly, "In the – thing, the movie. With Annika Templesmith. You kissed her on the lips."

"She kissed me," Finnick muttered, mouth barely moving. "You've never kissed me. Why should I kiss you when you've never kissed me either?"

Cinna's brow gathered. "Because… you love me."

Finnick rolled over, burying his face in the curve of his elbow.

"Just go to sleep," he muttered. His voice was muffled. "We can talk in the morning."

"We won't, though," Cinna said, pulling the sheets up around his waist. "You're always gone by the time I wake up. And then you – you don't talk to me at all, and you just… show up after the Games."

"Well, then come to the Capitol and find me," Finnick said gruffly, face still shielded by his arm.

"I can't," Cinna said miserably. "They don't let you leave the District 'til you're too old to be Reaped."

"Then come find me in the Training arena," Finnick grumbled.

"That's stupid," Cinna said angrily. "I'm not gonna be in the Hunger Games."

"You _really_can't know that," Finnick yawned, rolling over again and letting the sheet fall off his hips so he was bare to the knees. "No one knows."

"I won't be in the Games," Cinna insisted. "My father is one of President Snow's biggest supporters."

Finnick's brow furrowed. "So? Your name could still come out of the pool."

"Well," Cinna said, fidgeting a little, "I've never had to take out any tesserae. And… I'm not a Volunteer. Even if my name was picked, I wouldn't have to go. Someone who wanted to play the Games would – "

Finnick's face was red. "'Wanted to play' the Games? Do you – do you think it's _fun_?"

Cinna pulled back and twisted the sheet. "I mean, I don't – it wouldn't be for me, but… I know how much the Volunteers at school look forward to it. How hard they train. They really want it, so… it must be."

"Maybe until they actually get Reaped," Finnick said, "But then they really meet their Mentors. We have Volunteers in Four, too. You may note that no one volunteered in my place and I had to go even though I was only _fourteen_."

"Well, it just… it doesn't work that way in One," Cinna said meekly. "I'm sorry. And – and now you get to do all… _all_sorts of things, and see different Districts, and… well, doesn't that make it worth it?"

Finnick snorted. "I haven't even gotten to see Four since I won. Aside from my Victory Tour, the only Districts I've gotten to see are One and Two. That's where the wealthy people that Snow likes live."

"What are you talking about?"

"To buy me, Cinna," Finnick said flatly. "For nights like this." He paused. "Well, they usually aren't like this, but I'm sure your tastes will change, anyway."

"Wh—what do you mean, to buy you?" Cinna asked, tucking the sheets around himself more tightly.

"Are you that stupid?" Finnick hissed. "How do you think your _mother_ended up here?"

Cinna's blood boiled. "No. No. _No_. She was lucky to get out of a place like Eleven, she's – she loves it here. My mom loves me and she loves my father."

Finnick snorted and lay back against the rucked up pile of satin pillows, looking more naked than ever. "She loves him about as much as I love you, Cinna Midas. Mark my words."

Cinna shoved his chest. "Stop talking about my mother like that!"

Finnick's green eyes gleamed. "Like what? Like a whore? Takes one to know one, sweet little Cinna. Why do you think she never takes you with her to Eleven, huh? _She doesn't want them to know you exist_."

Cinna shoved him again. "Stop it! She can't take me with her, fuckhead. I'm not old enough to leave the District."

Finnick laughed. "You should try being in the Hunger Games. Then you can leave home whenever your good old Uncle Snow wants."

Cinna's eyes filled with tears. "Why are you doing this? I _love_ you; I _saved_ you. What did _I_ever do wrong to you?"

"You bought me like cattle," Finnick said calmly. "You bought me and you don't think that's wrong?"

"I didn't know anyone bought you!" Cinna hissed. "I thought – I thought you knew I was the one who sent you your trident and you asked to come thank me! I thought you had fun and you wanted to come back!" Cinna tasted salt. "I thought you liked me."

Finnick cooed softly and leaned over to pat Cinna's cheek sweetly. "Never fall in love with a whore, Cinna Midas." Then he pulled back and looked, really looked, at Cinna, crying softly beside him. "You really had no idea, did you?" Cinna was silent. "Cinna… you don't _know_ me. How could you – the only thing you know about me is what you've seen of me at my _worst_. How could you love someone you don't even know just because you watched them _kill children_?"

Cinna felt like there wasn't enough air in Panem for him to breathe. "You were brave. Tributes are never really brave. They're scared or they're mean or they're just lucky. But you were brave and… and you were nice to me and _no one_is nice to me because I'm just a couturier student and my mother's from Eleven and… " he wiped his nose on the back of his hand.

Finnick closed his eyes and rubbed his face with the heels of his hands. He collapsed back against the pillows again. "You should have let me die. Then we both wouldn't feel like this right now."

* * *

><p>Seven won the 67TH Hunger Games.<p>

Finnick never arrived in Cinna's room.

One won the 68TH. And no Finnick Odair.

But then the summer after the Hunger Games sent Persephone, as always, to Eleven with a kiss to Cinna's head.

Only that year, she never returned.

"Let me go get her," Cinna begged, "She probably just – she loses track of time. I'll go get her. Can I get a dispensation to go to Eleven? Please?"

And because Coriolanus Snow liked Cinna Midas very much, Cinna boarded his first-ever train East.

He had to present his papers at every District border, and his hands sweated every time. The train crossed into Two and Cinna was surprised at how different it was from One despite being so close: the roads were plain poured concrete and the houses simple, square, and white brick. Panem flags hung from every eave.

The fence borders to Eight were towering and scary and Cinna thought he'd lost his papers and only found them at the bottom of his bag at the last possible moment. Eight itself was smoggy from all the huge factories, their dark walls bigger and more imposing than anything Cinna had ever seen. A black moth landed on the train window and left a trail of slime when the speed of the wind whicked it away.

He slept through the short span of Nine, but when he woke up in Eleven, it was a different world. Rain poured too thick for him to see out the train's windows, but the muggy heat was oppressive and his clothes stuck to the back of his beck. A swampy ozone smell wafted through the train corridors and he realized they were still near the Eleven-Four border and his heart clenched like lead in his chest.

Eleven took days to cross. The heat got thicker and drier as they moved east, the swamp smell giving way to fruit and mercury.

And then Cinna was dropped off at the station in the headquarters of the huge District, all alone except his papers and the names of his mother's parents written on his sketchpad. He'd been told that his grandmother was informed of his arrival, but –

"Excuse me, sir, are you Cinnabar Midas?"

Cinna whipped around. The woman was tall – taller than any natural woman Cinna had ever seen – and stood with her head held high like a queen. Her skin was wrinkled and loose from age and sun. Against the simple pale pink cotton of her dress, her skin looked the color of bitter chocolate but softened in her face to a warm cocoa. She had reddish-black freckles dotting her nose and gray streaks in her thick hair.

Cinna nodded.

The woman nodded back. "I'm Deere."

Cinna felt bashful. "Hello, Deere. I'm Cinna, I'm your gr – I'm Persephone's son."

Deere smiled: a warm, knowing smile. "I know that, sweetheart. You have her eyes."

Cinna nodded and looked to the dusty red ground, the color of the Demitto iron rust. "Is she still here? She never came home."

Deere shook her head sadly. "No, child. She was gone when we woke up the mornin' of her train. Left a note on her pillow."

Cinna's face crumpled. "What did it say?"

"I don't know, sweetheart." Deere patted his cheek. "I been wondering that myself."

"Why – " Cinna started to ask, but cut himself off as he looked around the District center.

There was no schoolhouse here.

He smiled at Deere. "I'd love to read it to you."

Deere held his chin in her thumb tenderly. "You have her smile, too. I bet you were the most beautiful little child."

Cinna blushed. "I have – I brought cinemographs with me, in case my mom needed… convincing, to come home. But I'd be happy to give them to you, if you want."

"No, you keep those for Persephone. She'll want them when you find her, wherever she is." She held out her hand for Cinna to take. "You look hungry and like you could use a nice splash of cold water. That was a long way you traveled just to find your mama."

"It wasn't just to find her," Cinna admitted, taking his grandmother's hand and following along beside her. "I also wanted to find you."

Ringing the red-brown, bleak square full of abandoned storefronts shadowed by the huge marble Justice hall were fields: endless, vast tracts of land covered in different crops that Cinna couldn't name. Some were taller than the workers edging through their green-knuckled rows, pulling long sheets of green down from huge oblong plants and testing the yellow innards with their thumbs; long, waving amber plants like braids that shushed in the wind and came up to the knees of the straw-hatted workers deftly swinging scythes; lush, leafy green plants dotted with white and pink flowers, child workers pulling up big, green, lumpy pods.

"That's corn," Deere explained, pointing to the tallest plants. "And that there next to it is wheat, and the flowering one is soybeans. If you look there yonder – " she pointed further West – "That's a rice paddy. The ground there is underwater, see?"

Cinna nodded, trying to take it all in. "That's corn? I thought corn was little and yellow."

Deere laughed. "I guess once Nine gets through with it, it is. It grows on long stalks called ears. There, see?" In the field, a tall worker peeled back the green wrapping of a husk and pulled away the glossy white silk, revealing the bright yellow germ beneath. "It's corn."

Cinna was amazed. "What are soybeans?"

"Well, they make a lot of things in the Capitol," Deere said, turning the corner away from the fields and heading towards the narrow red-dust path. "It's cheaper to grow than it is to raise animals in Ten and it doesn't go bad near as quick in Nine for processing."

Cinna nodded and pointed over to the huge orchard rows that were framed in Eastern blue twilight. "Is that all fruit?"

"Mm-hmm," hummed Deere. "This time of year, there's the apples and applecots, sweet cherries, chiles, gooseberries, melons. Those huge vines there are tomatoes. It's a busy time of year."

"Oh," Cinna said, feeling his heart lurch, "I didn't mean to keep you – if you're going to get in trouble – "

"Oh, don't you worry about me," Deere said, waving a dismissive hand. "Your mama is a good worker when she comes back here summers, and meeting my grandson, well, that's a special occasion. I can spare an evening before you head off. 'Sides, Zephur's been out there since long before dawn today. That's your granddad," she explained, walking up the rickety steps to a tiny, raised wooden cottage.

Cinna smiled at his feet. _He had a grandfather_.

The cottage was somehow even tinier inside than outside. There was a single oilpaper window over one of the two narrow, rickety beds. Straw stuck out from the lumpy mattresses. There was no chillbox or videoscreen or comm ports, just a plain wooden table and three chairs. A small covered cupboard rested unevenly against the far wall.

Deere bustled to the fat potbelly stove and bent to stoke the small fire. She set a cracked cast-iron kettle atop its burner and filled it with water from a bucket. Then she turned to Cinna with a brilliant smile.

"So why don't you show me those cinemographs? When that water's hot you can have a nice cup of nettle tea. When Zephur gets home, you can read us that letter from Persephone."

Cinna nodded and pulled the packet of pictures from his bag. Deere's hand was cool and callused where it rested on his wrist as he told her about his childhood with his mother, and Cinna thought vaguely that he felt more at ease here than he ever had in the abyss of the dining room at home.

It was no wonder his mother had run away.

Zephur was a wizened old man in a faded red shirt and overalls, and he didn't say much when he got home. He clapped Cinna's shoulder with a knowing sort of sad respect, and bustled out to a shared back terrace to bring in the meager produce for supper. They ate fried apples and cabbage and a gritty quickbread of tessera grains, and Cinna hemmed and hawed over taking the peach that Deere offered him for dessert, because he could see it was the last in their cupboard.

But his mother had been telling the truth: it was so much sweeter here than in One.

"Here, now," Deere said, taking the sheet of thin paper from the bottom of the cupboard. "This is what Persephone left."

Cinna snatched it and read it. He frowned. "It's a poem, and a number."

"What does it say?" asked Deere, settling back in her chair. She thumbed again through the cinemographs of Cinna as a baby in Persephone's arms, her eyes bright.

"'What the hammer? What the chain? In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? What dread grasp dare its deadly terrors clasp?'" Cinna read. "And then there's the number thirteen."

Deere and Zephur locked eyes.

"She run to Thirteen," Zephur said, his dark, powerful hands making a steeple on the tabletop. "She finally done it."

"Thirteen?" Cinna echoed, looking from Deere to Zephur and back, "What's Thirteen?"

"District Thirteen, honey," Deere murmured, stroking Cinna's hair back from his face. "She's run away to District Thirteen."

"There is no Thirteen," Cinna said, shaking his head. His hands felt clammy.

"There is," Deere said. "Through Twelve, go North, you hit Thirteen. It's underground, sweetheart. And it's free."

"No, it's gone, the Capitol – "

"That friend of hers, Heavensbee, he's come from Thirteen," Deere whispered. "He told her how to get there a long time ago; she was just biding her time 'til she could run."

"So you're telling me that not only is District Thirteen still there, but you can tell that's where she went because of a _poem_and – and that she's always been planning to leave me?" Cinna asked, his voice wobbling against the trap in his throat.

"That's not just any poem, sweetheart," Deere said apologetically, rubbing her thumb below Cinna's wet eye. "It's from the Dark Days. That poem is illegal. It's about God. It's about how no man is more powerful than God."

Cinna shook his head. "There is no God."

Deere patted his hand. "I don't know whether it's true or not true. But there's no proof there isn't a God out there. And if there is? He's bigger than the Capitol, sweetheart. He is the only one who can create and destroy, no matter what that President Snow thinks. That's who's _really_in charge."

"'In what distant deeps or skies burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire?'" rumbled Zephur beside her: a deep bass voice filled with music. "'What the hand dare seize the fire?' Persephone seized that fire and she run with it. She's gone."

Cinna blinked and felt the tears slide down his cheeks. "She really didn't ever love me. She's been planning on running away for my whole life."

"Sweetheart, she wanted to bring you with her," Deere whispered. "That's why she left you that letter. She did love you. Why do you think she waited 'til you were grown up? She couldn't leave you alone with that man."

"But now I am alone," Cinna whispered. "I wouldn't even know where to start looking for her."

"Follow where that poem takes you," Zephur said. "That's how you can find Thirteen."

"I don't – "

"'Tiger, tiger, burning bright in the forests of the night,'" Deere recited, shuffling a cinemograph of Cinna and Blake to the top of the stack of pictures. "'What immortal hand or eye dare frame thy fearful symmetry?'"

* * *

><p>Two won the 69TH Hunger Games, and Finnick never appeared, but Cinna didn't expect it anymore. He had other birthday guests that he needed to see.<p>

"On what wings dare he aspire?" Cinna asked, leaning against the railing and watching the blue-gray smoke from Plutarch's cigarando furl off into the night. "What the hand, dare seize the fire?"

"So you finally figured it out?" Plutarch asked, flicking orange ash from the end of the cigarando. "Took you six years."

"I know," Cinna admitted, lifting his head. "It took Finnick Odair. It took my mother leaving me. I've known for ages. I just wasn't old enough to leave One. But I have now. I've been to Eleven. And there are still eleven more Districts for me to see."

Plutarch Heavensbee turned, cigarando burning low. "You should. It's eye-opening."

Cinna chewed the inside of his cheek.

"Did my mother make it?"

Plutarch just flicked the end of the cigarando onto the cold marble of the balcony. He ground it out beneath his heel.

Cinna sighed, determined. "Why that poem?"

Plutarch smiled and ground out his ashes. "It's a map. Tells you how to get from Eleven to Thirteen. 'The forests of the night,' you have to go East through the Orchards. Best to go at night, when the guard towers are changing shifts. 'Fearful symmetry,' follow the fence. 'Distant skies burnt the fire – '"

"District Twelve," guessed Cinna.

Plutarch nodded, pleased. "'Twist the sinews of thy heart'… there's a crooked path through the Twelve woods, heading towards the Wilderness. 'Watered down heaven' is about this little lake in the forest there, almost at the border between the Twelve woods and the Wilderness. There's a house there with some supplies and a good roof. Most of our good allies are from Twelve; they keep the house stocked and the mayor out there makes sure the electric fences are off."

"And you follow the far fence again," finished Cinna. "The fearful symmetry."

Plutarch nodded, sober. "I gave you that tiger so that you'd be able to find her some day, if you were so inclined to learn enough to realize where she went." He clapped Cinna on the shoulder. "I'm glad you were. You're a smart boy, Cinnabar Midas. And you have a good heart after all."

"It's because everyone I've ever loved is a Victor," Cinna muttered, looking off the balcony and down over the sparkling, reflective madness of the Alterior square and how the lights faded out towards the Demitto in the south before exploding into the neon-bright knot of the Capitol, far off in the distance but gleaming.

"You're lucky," Plutarch said. "Most of us have to live on after loving only Tributes."

Cinna gave him a tight-lipped smile. Plutarch nodded gratefully and lit another cigarando. He offered one to Cinna, who shook his head.

Blake wandered out onto the balcony, huge feet padding silently, and rubbed the soft side of his face against Cinna's thigh. Cinna reached down to rub Blake's thick ruff.

"Plutarch," he said thoughtfully, still scratching Blake's fur. Blake yawned spectacularly, baring his teeth. "You're a muttations regulator, aren't you?"

The older man nodded, puffing away. "Tipped for the top job." He paused. "You have to know what weapons your enemy's got."

"Have you ever thought about being a Gamemaker?" Cinna asked, looking up at him. "Maybe letting some designers know what mutts'll be in the Arena so we can bring more Tributes home?"

Plutarch's eyes narrowed. "Think about the lives of the Victors you've known, Cinna. Is it really worth winning for that?"

Cinna's jaw set. "Then we get the Victors to Thirteen."

Plutarch shook his head. "It's a nice idea, but that would just kill all their families. That's what they do, Cinna. That's how your mother and Finnick and Cashmere and Gloss and end up the way they are. They threaten to kill the Victors' families."

"Threaten?"

Plutarch's eyes darkened. "They _do_kill the Victors' families. It's what happened to Haymitch Abernathy."

"So we save the families, too."

"Too suspicious," Plutarch said, shaking his head again. "Plus, the Victors' Villages are bugged to shit. There'd be no way."

Cinna looked out over the horizon at the blinding ball of light that lit up the sky from its cradle in the mountains. "Then we stop the Hunger Games, and we save them all."

Plutarch laughed wryly. "Stop the Hunger Games? Just two men against the might of the Capitol? How exactly do you think we'll do that?"

Cinna took a deep breath. "I saved Finnick Odair's life. Just one kid. And you know how I did it?" He patted Blake's head. "I noticed what Finnick was wearing at his Opening Ceremonies. And I sent the right weapon into the Arena."

* * *

><p>"What are you doing here?" Finnick asked, his rosy mouth a thin, hard line as he crossed his tanned arms from his perch on the chaise longue.<p>

Cinna felt the familiar tug in the base of his stomach as he looked at Finnick Odair. "I have something that you want."

"_You don't have anything I want_," Finnick hissed. "Don't you think that trident was enough?"

Cinna felt the twitch in his cheek. He tried his hardest to look composed. "I have the blueprints for this year's Arena. And there's a flaw I think your Tributes should know."

Finnick stared at Cinna Midas. Cinna stood his ground and stared back.

"Shut the door," Finnick said, sitting up and making room for Cinna on the chaise. "You can have half an hour."

"It'll only take me five minutes to tell you," Cinna said, but he shut the door anyway. "It's a pretty major error, but I think it'll work to your kids' advantage. At least, from what I know about District Four. Which isn't much, I guess, but – "

"Shut up," Finnick said, sounding half-bored and half-amused. "You can _have_half an hour. And you can pay me with those blueprints so it can't be traced."

Cinna shook his head. "I don't want to do that to you."

Finnick smiled wryly. "I'm not fifteen anymore, Cinna Midas. And you turned out pretty cute."

Cinna felt his face glow hot. "The Arena is a gorge. They're planning an earthquake every twelve hours, you know, mudslides and everything with them. But the faultlines are too close to the Old Mississippi Dam. The walls _are_going to collapse and the arena's going to go under. It'll take… five minutes, maximum, once the seal is breached. Your kids can swim, right?"

Finnick was white beneath his sunkissed bronze tan. He nodded, looking dazed. "Before they could even walk."

"Make sure they know to stick to high ground," Cinna said. "But not the trees. They're patches, and the water will tear them right up. They might get crushed. There's – there's a pocket of caves in the Northwest corner of the Arena. Send them there and have them wait it out. It should only take a few days. Maybe a week, if they're unlucky."

"How did you find out about this?" Finnick breathed, curling his knees up to his chest as Cinna stepped a few paces closer.

Cinna smirked. "I fucked Seneca Crane's son."

Finnick raised an eyebrow, impressed. "Now that's a strategy. I fucked Crane and got nothing."

Cinna wrinkled his nose. "That's actually not an image that I ever needed in my head."

Finnick winked. "Like father, like son."

Cinna groaned and for the first time in years, he and Finnick Odair shared a laugh. This one might have been real.

"Come sit by me, Cinna the Conspirator," Finnick said, patting the cranberry velvet of the chaise longue.

Cinna scratched the back of his neck and sat, stiff and awkward.

"Isn't today your birthday?" Finnick asked. He slid his hand over Cinna's knee.

Cinna looked over to the beautiful man at his side. "Isn't it yours, too?"

"You're too old for the Reapings now," Finnick noted. "Congratulations."

Cinna frowned. "I almost Volunteered, you know. That year. Just to – I just wanted you to see that I wasn't useless and afraid. But they wouldn't let me. They said, 'you're not a top odd; don't you have District pride? Don't you want One to win again?'"

"You would have died," Finnick said seriously.

"I know," Cinna said, and shrugged. "It seemed worth it at the time, knowing what I did to you. And what the Games did to my mother. But then Helvius Crane came out to the school to scout for an apprentice, and I saw the blueprints in his bag and… In One, if you steal, they hang you. But I don't care what they do in One anymore."

Finnick looked at his knees. "I know it wasn't your idea. Plutarch told me. You really never had any idea."

Cinna shook his head.

"He said your mother's gone."

Cinna looked up. "Did she make it? Do you know? Is she in Thirteen?"

"I don't know." Finnick shrugged. "I've never had contact with them yet. They said the best thing I can do is keep my ears open out here for now, and I don't have anything better to do, so…"

Cinna nodded, studying his shoes. Finnick reached over and put a hand on Cinna's knee again, and Cinna didn't stop him.

After, Cinna straightened his pants and found the small packet of pink powder in his pocket.

"Oh," he said, pulling it out and proffering it to Finnick, "I brought – I'd just heard that you, um… collect your own fee?"

Finnick waved a hand and smiled. It wasn't cruel. He pocketed the dam arena blueprints instead. "I did, but… no, thanks. I think now I get paid in secrets."


	3. District Five: The Boy on Fire

**Author**: **aimmyarrowshigh**  
><strong>Fandom<strong>: _The Hunger Games_, Suzanne Collins  
><strong>Story Title<strong>: "Five Places Cinna Came From"  
><strong>Summary<strong>: _Cinna did not come from the Capitol. Five paths he took out of the Districts, and why he set a nation on fire._  
><strong>CharacterRelationships**: (Specific to each section; listed on those pages.) OVERALL - Cinna/Finnick, Finnick/Annie, Katniss/Peeta. Johanna. Haymitch. Beetee. Mags. President Snow.  
><strong>Rating<strong>: M  
><strong>Warnings<strong>: There are very separate, very specific trigger warnings on each District's story, so please read those if you have concerns.  
><strong>Wordcount<strong>: (total) 86,000  
><strong>Disclaimer<strong>: I only own the original characters and concepts. All settings and proprietary language are owned by the author of the work from which this is derived.  
><strong>Notes<strong>: Originally written for **panemetfabulae** for **sihaya09**. She wanted "Finnick POV pre-canon, AUs where different people died in/survived Mockingjay, or Johanna POV on how she won her games," so here are four pre-canon Finnicks and a How Johanna Won Her Games. :) I really hope you enjoy it! I would never have managed to finish this without **poppypickle**, **badguys**, **electrumqueen**, **puella_nerdii**, **glycerineclown**, **lovepollution**, **skellerbvvt**, and **rurone**.

* * *

><p><strong>Author<strong>: **aimmyarrowshigh**  
><strong>Fandom<strong>: _The Hunger Games_, Suzanne Collins  
><strong>Story Title<strong>: "Five Places Cinna Came From: District Five (The Boy on Fire)"  
><strong>CharacterRelationships**: Cinna, Finnick, Portia, Finnick/Annie.  
><strong>Rating<strong>: M  
><strong>Warnings<strong>: Spoilers for all three books (although as long as you know what Finnick does for a living and who Annie is, you're probably okay on _Mockingjay_). Violence, forced sexual slavery, enforced reproduction, sexual abuse, bad language, character death, underage sexual contact, familial death. One mention past object rape. All of the usual feel-good content of Collins' Hunger Games world!  
><strong>Major trigger warnings:<strong> Forced sexual slavery, enforced reproduction, sexual abuse. One mention past object rape.  
><strong>Wordcount<strong>: 86,000  
><strong>Disclaimer<strong>: I only own the original characters and concepts. All settings and proprietary language are owned by the author of the work from which this is derived.

**Five Places Cinna Came From  
><em>District Five: The Boy on Fire<em>**

**003. District Five**  
>Finnick Odair wet his plump lower lip with the tip of his tongue. "Oh, I much prefer you to the awful girl I had before. <em>Sinner<em>," he drawled, undoing his silk robe. "That's just delicious."

Cinna tucked his pencil behind his ear. "Cinn_a_, actually. With an 'a'."

"That's what I said," Finnick agreed with a cheeky, lopsided smirk. That District Four brogue that had seemed uneducated on every other Tribute in the annual Games interviews just made him seem like his mouth was tired in all the right ways – something, Cinna suspected, Finnick played up on purpose. He dropped the robe and green silk slithered down the length of his tanned legs to pool on the floor. "Sinner. With an A."

His eyes flashed as he canted his hips _just so_. There were few people who could look more naked than Finnick Odair.

Cinna's lips pursed. "I don't relate to people in that way, Finnick. So you can stop trying so hard."

Finnick's eyebrows rose. "Why, Apprentice Sinner, was that a pun?"

Cinna pinched the bridge of his nose. "No." He sketched a few quick lines into his preliminary drawings, adjusting a waistband here and adding a slit to show just a glimpse of Finnick's inner thigh there.

"Are you shy, Apprentice Sinner?" Finnick asked affectionately. "Do I make you nervous?"

Cinna looked up. "No. And I'm an assistant, not an apprentice."

"_You say to-may-to, I say to-mah-to, let's call the whole thing off_," Finnick sang cheerfully, the rhythm of an old sea chanty lilting his voice. "Apprentice, assistant, coffee boy… all the same to me."

Cinna sighed and flipped another page in his sketchbook, drawing out conch shell calico patterns. "If I were still Sulla's apprentice, he would be the one dealing with you. Do you see him here?"

"I don't see anyone in this big old bedroom except you… and me," Finnick said, grinning a little too widely and a little too toothily to be real. "So let's start this partnership off right, hmm, Apprentice Sinner? Tell me a little about yourself."

Cinna smiled his own false smile, thin-lipped and tight. "To start and finish, if you won't call me Cinna, then you can call me Daunorubicin. And I'm from District Five."

Finnick's lips formed a little pink O. "I surely can't pronounce all _that_. I haven't had anyone from District Five. This is exciting, this new… relationship we have."

"You never will have anyone from District Five," Cinna said, sketching a row of spines along the epaulets of a blue blazer. "Like I said, I don't relate to people that way."

"Yes, you did mention that, but I'm afraid I don't quite understand your meaning," Finnick said pleasantly, but his veneer had cracked and his Victor was showing through; the dark, cold calculations in his eyes telling Cinna that he was beginning to compare strategies. "Maybe you hadn't heard, Apprentice Sinner. I'm not people. I'm Finnick Odair."

"Well, if it's all the same to you, Finnick Odair, I don't have sex with my clients, or anyone else," Cinna said, not looking up again. "So you can flaunt your penis in my face all you want, but I'm not going to do anything about it except figure out the best way to cover it with gold netting and sequins."

There was a long silence from across the room and Cinna took advantage of the peace to turn to his drawing board and begin riffling through his samples, trying to find that stretchy bit of turquoise fabric and some wire.

"You don't _ever_have relations with anybody?"

Cinna sighed. "No, Finnick, I don't. I don't want to fuck you. And I most certainly don't want to be fucked by you."

Finnick arched an eyebrow. "I thought our good mutual… friend… Plutarch said you took a particular interest in me."

Cinna blinked and looked away, back to his sketchpad and the sprinkling of tiny, half-shaded conch shells littering the paper. "I don't know what he implied, but I just want to dress you."

"Well, that's just unusual, Apprentice Sinner. Most people are just as like to undress me as anything else."

"Well, most people you know aren't from Five, are they?" Cinna asked, not looking up from where he was painting the turquoise scrap with different shades of blue watercolor, seeing how it took the dye. "You think I can't see through you, Finnick Odair? You don't want this."

This time there was a quiet so long that Cinna forgot Finnick was there as he descended into his creative haze, letting the colors and textures of the watercolors and mesh and wire begin to transform into polyps of a blue sea anemone. A soft shushing sound across the room alerted Cinna to Finnick's continued presence, and when he looked up, Finnick had tied his robe back on. Properly, even, so most of his chest and the entirety of his lower half were covered.

"What do they do to you in that District?" Finnick asked finally. He wrapped one of his arms around his waist and the other around his chest, his hand curled up over his throat. His posture made him look younger, and Cinna remembered that Finnick Odair was only twenty-one.

Cinna met his eyes. "Like I said. We're the DNA dump. I'm just glad every day that I was born a boy."

Finnick's blue-green eyes narrowed, and then he did something very strange.

He looked over his shoulder and said, with far less of a twang: "Beetee."

Then he looked back to Cinna with sharp, intelligent eyes and stated, "We have thirty minutes. You can tell the truth now."

"What – "

"Feedback loop. Don't you know the walls have ears in the Capitol?" Finnick smiled grimly. "Now the bugs won't get anything for half an hour. I believe my comrade said he made my loop sound much like moaning and bedsprings, so as to keep Mister President from getting too suspicious."

Cinna raised an eyebrow. "Gutsy."

"Rebellious, you might say." Finnick's smirk was so indulgent it could have been made of chocolate. "Now tell me: what are they doing to the children in that District? Why doesn't anyone from Five hardly ever win, and why don't you 'relate to people in that way'?"

"What don't they do to the children in District Five?" Cinna laughed hollowly. "Tell me, Finnick Odair, how old were you the first time you had sex?"

Finnick's jaw clenched. "Fourteen." The muscled ticked. "It wasn't my choice."

Cinna nodded in commiseration. "I was ten. Wasn't mine, either."

Finnick scrubbed a manicured hand through his illustrious bronze curls and let out a low whistle. He gestured to one of the chaises that flanked his enormous round bed. "Sit." Then he rolled over and rooted around beneath the dust ruffle, emerging with a packet of chocolate cookies. He offered Cinna one, and Cinna took it. "I promise I'll work off the sugar. Now, _ten_? How does that – can you even – I don't mean to pry, I think sometimes I've forgotten how privacy works – "

"They inject us with things from before we're born." Cinna nibbled at the cookie. It was dusty. "Hormones and genetically altered proteins. Do you know what those are?"

Finnick shrugged, eating a second cookie. "Enough."

"Well, from our tenth birthdays, we're put to work," Cinna said. "Just like any other District."

"In Four, work for the kids is sorting oysters and braiding rope. I get the sense from your demeanor that is not so much the case one District over?" Finnick asked, his green eyes shrewd. "You mentioned being glad you're a boy."

Cinna sighed. "Girls gestate the mutt embryos. Sometimes human. More often now."

Finnick blinked. "_Why?_"

"The Capitol's been trying to breed perfect Peacekeepers." Cinna paused. "Boys provide the human DNA for traits like strategizing and intelligence and creativity and language."

Finnick looked down at his feet as he polished off another cookie. "President Snow..." He looked up. "It's my job, too."

Cinna suddenly understood everything about this city and this Victor and these outfits he'd been commissioned to design – they weren't even lingerie or costumes, they were whore clothing. Advertisement.

"For six hours a day, four days a week, for nine years, I was hooked up to a harness in a lab with an electric rod up me," Cinna said, in a tone of voice that spelled of practice being controlled and matter-of-fact. "So… I don't really see the intimacy of sex or the alleged fun of orgasms."

Finnick nodded. "Everyone hates their job."

"Why do you do this?" Cinna asked, shaking his head. "Why do you have to? You're a Victor, you're supposed to have a Talent and live in Four."

"I wasn't supposed to win my Games. This boy from Ten was supposed to win, they had some kind of deal between the District mayor and the Capitol for better beef, or something stupid like that. But I didn't know. I just didn't want to die. So I killed him." Finnick looked up. "They inject me with something when I'm here. So I'm always – well, good merchandise."

"Sildenafil citrate," Cinna said. "It's not fun."

"No," Finnick agreed. "Phew, that's what you learned in school out there? Longest thing I remember learning out in Four is maybe 'bioluminescence.' And 'don't go picking up creatures you don't recognize.'" Then he snorted. "Clearly, no one taught that to the Capitol."

Cinna covered his mouth with the hand not holding the cookie.

Finnick's smile was real this time. Then his smile fell – perhaps for the first time – and he tangled his fingers together. "Does it – I mean, will I – I mean… I have a girl. Back home." He looked up and his eyes were shy, and this way, this natural way, Cinna finally thought he saw what everyone else did in Finnick Odair. The charm and the beauty. "I wanna marry her."

Cinna smiled back reassuringly. "You can still have kids, if that's what you're asking. I don't know what else they've done to mess with your chemistry, but if it's just the sildenafil citrate, you're okay."

Finnick's face flushed a soft, end-of-sunrise red and he looked down, nibbling at a third cookie. Cinna swallowed a few crumbs.

"Why did you tell me anything?" he asked.

Finnick looked up. "Plutarch said – he said he arranged for you to get this gig because you're sympathetic to the cause."

Cinna's brow furrowed. "What 'cause'?"

Finnick's eyes darkened. He paused, rolling the cookie from one knuckle to another. "Have you ever had chocolate before? I never did, before I came to the Capitol for my Games."

Cinna nodded. "We had it all the time in Five. I think we might have gotten better rations and supplies there, to – you know. Keep everyone from mutiny. Or something. But I always had chocolate as a kid, and wool blankets and enough to eat." He sighed. "It's _so wrong_, but no one _does_ anything because we see how skinny those kids from Eleven and Twelve are and it's just like… they could make it even worse. If they wanted. Nothing, no one could stop them from making it even worse." Then Cinna paused. "_Oh._"

"Yes." Finnick looked up with bright, almost wild eyes. "Oh."

"So… why me?" Cinna asked, setting the cookie down on the dresser. "All I do is design clothes."

"Do you know how _visible_that is compared to what the rest of us can do?" Finnick asked, shaking his head. "Back in the Dark Days, there were these – campaigns, I guess, strategy campaigns, where millions of people would all wear the same ribbon on their shirt, and it meant something. A message." Finnick's blue-green eyes leveled with Cinna's. "We want you to design a message."

"Like what, a chocolate bar?" Cinna asked dubiously, scrubbing a hand through his hair again. "And how would anyone even see it? It's not like they get _Page C_in the Districts, so even if you're wearing it – "

"Not me," Finnick interrupted. "Not yet, anyway." He paused. "What's the one thing every person in Panem sees?"

Cinna gaped. "The Hunger Games?"

Finnick nodded, a maniacal gleam in his eyes. "Think about it. What could be a more opportune time to reach out to the Districts than the annual slaughter of their children? You put the right message into their heads with the right symbol on the right Tribute – "

"It would be suicide," Cinna half-laughed, incredulous and wondering just how many drugs besides the Sildenafil were pumping through Finnick Odair's veins after all. "And I'm a private stylist."

"Plutarch is a Gamemaker," Finnick shot back. "Any District, any District you want."

Cinna shook his head. "I couldn't. I can't."

Finnick reached out to touch Cinna's arm, thought better of it, and rested his hand in the air like a blessing. "Think about it. Really… _think_about it." He shook his head. "You have to find something that would be worth the risk. You know. I let the Capitol use me to protect my family… I'm not gonna let them make it even worse for them."

Cinna nodded, picking up the cookie again and nibbling at it. "That's sweet, Finnick. It is. But I don't have anyone. I got out of Five after _years_of wishing to be out of the Districts, and I don't really – I don't want to die, right off the bat. I want to live first. Without pain."

Finnick looked at his knees and nodded. "You're lucky to be getting that chance. Most people in Panem never do."

Cinna sighed and stood, walking back to his drafting table and picking out a turquoise pencil. "I know. I do know that, really, I just – let's start small, okay? I'll put some real thought into your clothes and try to help you, and if we live through that… I'll consider it."

* * *

><p>"Petit four?"<p>

"I don't know how you eat that much sugar without going into a diabetic coma," Cinna said absently, waving to Finnick without looking up from the dressform.

The springs on the bed creaked softly as Finnick flung himself down on it, munching tiny cakes. "I don't know what 'diabetic' is, but I'd take a coma right about now." He yawned spectacularly.

"Long night?" Cinna asked, taking a pin from between his lips and marking a hemline.

There was a soft crinkle of paper as Finnick unwrapped another little pink cake. "You could say that."

Cinna looked up and over at his charge. The skin around Finnick's eyes was tight in a way that spelled of exhaustion and there were fresh rings of Remade skin around his wrists and ankles. He smiled wanly and inhaled the cake in one gulp.

"It isn't always like this," he assured Cinna, flopping back and yawning again. "And I just have to get through Crane's party tonight and I can go home. Probably at least a week this time."

"Do you like going back to Four?" Cinna asked curiously, coming over to take a little coconut-crusted cake from the box.

Finnick smiled, his eyes closed. He rubbed at the rubbery-smooth new skin on his wrists. "More than anything in the world. It's too _cold_here. The air's hard to breathe."

"I hadn't noticed," Cinna said honestly, dusting sugar off his fingers and heading back to the dressform.

"You wouldn't've," Finnick said, good-natured. "You haven't left this room in about a week. Do you even sleep?"

"Not much," Cinna admitted. "Not when I'm designing. It's kind of important that you make an impression tonight, you know."

Finnick sat up. "You decided to help?"

Cinna shook his head. "I haven't decided anything. I just don't want to get sent back to Five for dressing _The_Finnick Odair like a mitochondrial anomaly."

Finnick stared blankly. "Am I just too tired for my ears to work or was that gibberish?"

Cinna smiled. He could see why everyone wanted the company of Finnick Odair – the man was charmingly self-effacing. But Cinna wondered how much of that was real. "I hope my clothes don't look foolish."

Finnick raised an eyebrow. "Have you seen the people who live here?"

"I have," Cinna said, turning back to his pins and marking another minute pleat. "But the first lesson of manipulated evolution is that you have to start with the smallest deviations."

"What's the last lesson?" Finnick stretched and the new skin on his wrist striped over with the effort. He grimaced and rubbed it, digging around in the nightstand table for a violently-purple ointment.

Cinna drew back, measuring the scale of the design on his dressform, weighing its ratios with his eyes. He took up his soft brush and dipped it in the little pot of phosphorescent pearl powder, dabbing it at one of the pleats.

"Cinna?" Finnick asked again through gritted teeth as the salve reknit his fragile skin. "What's the last lesson?"

"Hmm?" Cinna looked up. "Oh. A new species." He blinked at Finnick. "The powders need to charge for half an hour before I can fit you and do the alterations… do you want to take a nap?"

Finnick shook his head. "If I fall asleep now I'll never wake up for the party tonight." He stood and the bones of his spine cracked, one two three four in a row. "I'm going to take a shower, if you don't mind my leaving you."

Cinna waved a hand. "Go. Be careful of that new skin in the water, if it rehydrates too much – "

"It'll fill with water like a sponge and burst?" Finnick asked. "I know. Not my first trip to the lighthouse."

Cinna nodded. "When you're finished, we can start prep for the party. Do you have your own prep team or do you – "

"I want you to do it," Finnick said quickly. "If you're comfortable with that. I just… I'd rather have someone who doesn't – "

"It's fine," Cinna said, turning back to the pearl powders on his drafting desk. "I understand."

Finnick nodded and reached out again to clasp Cinna's shoulder before pulling back, looking apologetic. "I know you do."

Finnick's skin, both original and Remade, was perfectly smooth and just barely scented with the sea salt soap he used in the Capitol when he emerged from the lavish washroom and Cinna helped him lace into the wide blue cummerbund lined in whalebone – almost a corset, if Finnick had more hip, as he'd commented wryly – and matching knee-length pants so tight he would be stitched into them just before the party.

"I'm impressed," Finnick said, looking down as Cinna snipped off the excess laces. "It's already a major change to get to wear pants."

Cinna grinned. "Just wait a minute."

"What do you have up your sleeve, Cinna Balmain?"

"The question is," Cinna said, pulling the final lace tight at the base of Finnick's spine and snipping off the excess, "What do you have up yours?" He stepped around to check the draping of the myriad pleats across Finnick's abdomen and thighs. "Now, pretend like you're at Snow's party and I'm a drunk Capitol housewife."

Finnick slid on a grin as easy as glycerine pouring into a tube, tilting his hips forward and reaching up to run a hand through his hair. Cinna reached out and waved a hand in front of Finnick's cummerbund, a few inches off from actually touching the man –

And hundreds of long, tapered, transpired spines tipped in glowing blue shot out from the ensemble like a shield of a hundred arms.

"Whoa," Finnick gasped, looking down at the forest of glowing, defensive tentacles. "I'm a sea anemone."

"Exactly," Cinna said, pleased. He stepped around Finnick again and loosened the cummerbund's laces, and the spines shot back into place like harmless pleats. "Beautiful to look at, poisonous to touch."

"I love it," Finnick said, looking down at his chest. He waved a hand over the front and nothing happened. "Do it again. It only activates if someone else touches me? How?"

"Angles of approach," Cinna said, getting a pincushion and kneeling to start piecing together the inseam of Finnick's pants. "You can move however you want, but no one else can get close. I figured – I know it won't change your night, but it might improve your evening. And either way, it'll give _Page C_something to talk about."

They both fell quiet as Cinna worked, pulling the hems close an inch at a time and stitching Finnick's pants tight around him, dabbing phosphorescent powder over the seam. It was a comfortable silence, broken only by the persistent, tiny hum of the feedback loop battling the bugs.

"It's Annie Cresta," Finnick Odair said suddenly as Cinna plucked a pin from his mouth and wove a dart into the pocket of Finnick's sharp, spiked anemone leggings.

Cinna remembered the hollow shell of a girl who'd been plucked from the water two years before. "What is?"

"My girl," Finnick said, and the bashful pride in his voice made even Cinna Balmain smile around all the pins. "The one I want to marry. It's Annie Cresta."

Cinna plucked another pin from his mouth and tried not to stab Finnick's arm. "Isn't she… the rumors all say that she went mad."

"She isn't crazy," Finnick said sharply. "She just needs different things than other people do to be happy."

Cinna wove another pin through the slick material. "Don't we all."

"She doesn't know what I do here," Finnick murmured a while later as Cinna looked up at him from where he was bejeweling the spikes along Finnick's long thighs. "I mean… she knows, but she doesn't understand. She's not – we're not – that way."

Cinna smiled wryly up at him around the pins in his mouth. "Would you look at that? The great Finnick Odair is stammering over the idea of sex."

Finnick shook his head. "It's different. Even you have to understand that's different." He paused. "I do this for her. So she won't – she's not a great Victor, you know? She'll never mentor. She can't be put into Capitol specials, and she doesn't have a Talent that people can follow. She just lives. And she just is. Snow doesn't like that."

* * *

><p><em>PAGE C: Capitol Celebrity Coverage<em>  
><em>ANNIKA TEMPLESMITH: NEW NOSE, LIPS! • 'DISTRICT FOURTEEN' SET TO REOPEN ON SNOW SQUARE; ADDS 'BLOODY MASON' COCKTAIL TO MENU • CAESAR FLICKERMAN TO UNVEIL FRAGRANCE LINE<em>

_FINNICK ODAIR MAKES A POINT AT GALA_  
><em>All eyes were on Finnick Odair at President Snow's Winter Season gala last night, but not for the usual reason: instead of making a scene out of his clothes, the Ohhh-dair made a splash with them! In a stunning debut for fresh stylist Cinna Balmain, Finnick Odair wore an interactive undersea sensation.<em>

_"It's a sea anemone," he explained with a cheeky grin [illus. at right, p.2C] "Cinna did a great job. I'm hoping that we can convince him to work with my Tribs for the 73RD Games."_

_We second that wish! As long as Balmain can correct the design flaw that rendered Fantastic Finnick unapproachable for most of the evening, we'd love to see the fearsome Four Tribs wrapped up in glowing tentacles!_

When Finnick returned to his suite the next morning, he fell straight into bed and was asleep before he'd even taken the anemone costume off. The spikes crushed against the sheets, but that was alright – Cinna knew it was a design meant to be worn once and never replicated.

Quite possibly his favorite thing about design was the capability for uniqueness. He could create something purely for beauty and never have to record his findings for anyone else to cross-examine. His art was his, and his alone.

He smiled down at the news clipping tucked onto his breakfast delivery beside the sweet, smooth coffee and decadent sweet roll. He pasted Page C's praise into his sketchpad on the corner of the anemone's mechanism outline, took a sip of coffee, and cracked open the spine of _ Capitol Texts For District Four_, taken from Finnick's little shelf of personal effects.

Finnick slept for 36 hours. Cinna would have worried, but every so often, Finnick snuffled and turned over, twisting himself up in the blankets and activating-and-deactivating the anemone spikes comically.

"Hey," he rasped finally, almost two full days after Snow's party. He rubbed his eyes and blinked over at the dressform Cinna was slathering in black liquid latex. "What the fragum is that?"

Cinna glanced over his shoulder. "You're awake. Good. Should I call for food or can you come try this on?"

"Food first," Finnick yawned, stretching. "I want a lemaranja meringue pie."

"No," Cinna said, laughing. "I'm honestly worried about your pancreas."

"You pronounced it wrong, it doesn't have a 'cr' sound in the middle," Finnick mumbled, distracted and falling face-first into the pillows again. "I want a jar of roe. Orange, not black. And two soft-boiled quairtridge eggs. And three pickled sardines."

Cinna raised an eyebrow. "Toast?"

Finnick shook his head, looking up at his assistant with one bleary eye. "I'm not supposed to eat bread on my diet."

Cinna snorted a laugh. "You can eat an entire box of petit fours, a whole jar of roe, and three pickled fish and you're not allowed bread? What kind of diet is that?"

Finnick finally sat up and twisted so Cinna could start unlacing his cummerbund. "Snow calls it the Four Beach diet. But we eat bread in Four, so I don't know where they got it. I think it's just because bread reminds people of the Districts and unless they're fighting in the Games, Snow doesn't like to remind people that they're out there." He sighed appreciatively as the cummerbund came loose and he rubbed his ribs. "You haven't had a Games season out here yet. Every bar just serves Victory cocktails and District-inspired food and plays the coverage on the walls. Just bread and Games."

Cinna smiled and nodded. He folded the cummerbund and stood up. "Well, I'm in charge of your appearance now, and I say you can have some toast. Go wash up, eat, and then we'll cut you out of those pants."

Finnick stood up and winced, stretching out his back. "You know, it's a good thing no one could get near me with that thing on, considering the pants _don't come off_."

Cinna shrugged innocently. "I know."

A smiled tugged at Finnick's lips. "I'd hug you if you weren't from Five."

"I know," Cinna said, nodding. "I appreciate it. Go. Wash. You stink like an entire pharm closet. What kind of toast do you want?"

"Every kind," Finnick called over his shoulder as he gingerly made his way to the showers.

Cinna sighed as the door shut, then called down to Kitchens to order two soft-boiled eggs, three pickled sardines, orange roe, and fourteen slices of toast: one from each District.

When the table slid open and a rainbow of bread rose out of the nether of Kitchens, Cinna couldn't help but to chuckle.

Finnick walked out of the bathroom in his tiny blue robe, fluffing a hand through his hair, and said, "It's nice to see you laugh – hey, you really got me toast! Look at that!"

He sat down and grabbed a pale green, fish-shaped roll and greedily bit off its head. He beamed up at Cinna, mouth full. "Thanks." He looked at the table. "Want some toast?"

"Sure," Cinna agreed, sitting at the chair opposite and reaching for one of the modest crescent rolls, studded with seeds. He tore off a small piece and chewed, surprised by the malty flavor.

"That's from Eleven," Finnick informed him, his mouth full of green seaweed bread and orange roe. "Chaff fries it with milk and sugar for breakfast. Calls it 'Liberty Toast.' He and Haymitch eat it and tease me that I can't have any. Which one's Five?"

Cinna pointed to the little dish of white bread in little knots the size of walnuts, swimming in clear, garlicky butter. "You can have them all."

Finnick nodded and swallowed his bread before starting in on the pickled sardines. He laid them out across Twelve's rough, oaty biscuits. "Beetee." They waited, chewing pensively, as the screws turned. "So, have you thought any more about my… proposition?"

"Finnick."

"Sorry," Finnick said, not sounding sorry at all. "It's automatic. But have you?"

Cinna sighed. "I'm going to say no, Finnick. At least for now. I am sympathetic to your cause and I want to do everything I can to help _you_, but I don't want to take on the Games. I don't want to take on the Capitol. I'm Cinna the stylist… not Cinna the conspirator."

Finnick looked down sadly at the little squares of white Three bread in his fingers. He dipped them into the runny, orange-red yolk of the quairtridge egg balanced delicately on its half-shell. "I understand."

"Do you?" Cinna asked, drumming his thumbs on the edge of the table. "It's not that I don't want a free Panem, I do, I just – "

"No, I do understand," Finnick assured him, meeting his eyes and smiling softly. "It's a lot to ask of someone, I know that. And you… don't have anyone you're fighting for. And that's great for me, because it means you're not too afraid to dress me as a fragum sea anemone at Snow's Winter Gala, but I can see how there'd be less motivation to… probably die… horribly… if there's no one who's worth that, to you."

"And Annie's worth that, for you?" Cinna asked, picking at Two's crisp, crackly, unleavened flatbread. "Knowing you'll be hurt more than you already have?"

Finnick set down all of the food and laid his hands flat on the tabletop. "Absolutely yes. Because the only _real_way to hurt me again would be to harm a hair on Annie's head. I want her to be safe. And I want her to heal. And I want to live in a country where she and I can get married, and – and have lots of babies and not worry about 'what if I have to watch her watch them get Reaped'?" He sighed and popped the last of the Three rolls and egg into his mouth. "So. What is that contraption you're dressing me in next?"

Cinna smiled. "You're lucky, to feel that about Annie. And she's really lucky to have someone as brave as you are to love her." He stood, sucking a last crumb of bread from his thumb. "And that – " he gestured to the black-splashed dressform, "Is an anglerfish."

Finnick raised an eyebrow. "I am intrigued."

Cinna nodded as though in welcome. "Go ahead and look at it. Walk up from the right, from the left. And then try getting in close from the front."

Finnick stood and brushed his hands clean of sticky yolk and fish eggs on his robe. He slowly walked towards the dress form, approaching from the right, tilting his head. "It's pretty. I like the glowy bits – oh, I get it, how anglerfish glow, that's nice. And it actually covers my ass, that's nice, too." He sidled around and looked from the left. "Pretty painting on the scales. But I don't – " He looked up from straight ahead of the dressform and jumped back, startled, his hand at his throat. "Holy Poseidon in the seas, what the – fragum!" He looked over at Cinna, his eyes wide. "What is that?"

Cinna smiled. "Anglerfish."

"How is it suddenly there out of nowhere?" Finnick asked, finally dropping his hand from his throat. He reached out to poke the looming fangs that cloaked the costume like a protective bubble. He stepped to the left. "Oh! They're gone again!"

"They're still there," Cinna said smugly. "Mirrored hologram projecting from the collar, see? You can't see the anglerfish mouth until you look head-on. But the danger's always there."

* * *

><p><em>PAGE C: Capitol Celebrity Coverage<em>  
><em>GET FIT WITH ATALA BRIAND • HUNGER GAMES COUNTDOWN: 10 DAYS • SPOTTED! ENOBARIA AND GLOSS… IS A NEW POWER COUPLE ON THE HORIZON?<em>

_FINNICK ODAIR FASHION STATEMENTS: EDGY OR OUT-OF-HAND?_  
><em>Spikes and holograms and alarm bells, oh my!<em>

_If you have an eye for fashion – or fear – you've noticed the frocks on dear F***-Me-Finnick Odair this season. From the stunning sea anemone two-piece suit at President Snow's Winter Gala (LEFT) to the terrifying anglerfish-inspired bodysuit at Fulvia Cardew's pre-Games fundraiser, this is the first time it can be said that Finnick's making waves for what he's wearing… and not what he isn't wearing!_

_"My new stylist is wonderful," Odair gushed. "It's really all the unique special effects that make his work so inspiring."_

_Inspiring is one word for it. With all of the scary sparks in Finnick's outerwear, no one can get close enough to get a look at the inner Finnick anymore!_

_"Can't touch me?" Finnick laughed. "You know, I guess that explains why I've been able to get a full night's sleep lately."_

_Oh, Finnick, we hope you and your stylist sort out a way to make those gorgeous special effects a little less aggressive soon – sleeping seems like such a waste of Finnick Odair's Capitol nights!_

Finnick laid the paper down on the tabletop beside the sweet breakfast rolls and coffee. "That's not good."

"Nope," Cinna agreed. "I am so sorry… is Annie okay?"

Finnick's lips were thin. "I called Mags last night to check on them; she said Annie's not doing so well. But she's alive, so, yeah, she's okay." He sighed. "I guess we're back to little gold thongs, huh?"

Cinna wrinkled his nose. "Maybe we can stuff some dry ice down there, make it misty. That's about as much intrigue as the Capitol club kids can take, huh?"

Finnick exhaled once softly in an almost-laugh. Then he swallowed and sobered. "Cinna, I know you hate talking about Five, but… the Reaping is coming soon. Is there _anyone_there that needs protection?"

Cinna picked a nut from the top of his sweet roll. "No. My father's the head of the muttations lab, they wouldn't hurt him. They need him. My mother's dead. My sisters are all dead. I don't have any other family."

Finnick nodded, folding the corner of the newspaper until it ripped off in his hand. "That's good."

"Are you headed back to Four soon?" Cinna asked, pushing the button on the table to send their uneaten breakfast down to Disposal.

Finnick shook his head. "It's probably safer for everyone if I – don't go back for a while. I'm not Mentoring this year, so I'll stick around the Capitol, do a few… odd jobs… to get back in good graces. I'll be around for the Games; it'll be a _lot_ of parties and appearances." He looked up. "And a lot of _meetings_, if you want to sit in."

Cinna ran a hand through his dark hair. "I'll consider it. I will."

Finnick nodded and stood. "I'm going to shower. I probably have an old ropework bikini somewhere, if you want to take a day off. I'm – I'm not kicking you out," he said quickly. "I just don't want you to feel like you have to stay all the time."

"It's okay," Cinna assured him. "You aren't bad company, when you tone down the flirting."

"Tone it down?" Finnick asked in his most charming voice, trailing a hand suggestively down his front, "Why, Sinner, I do believe that you have grown immune to my charms. I'll just have to try… harder…"

"Oh, criminy," Cinna groaned. "Get out of here. Go shower. Put on pants for a change."

Finnick laughed. "You're good company, too."

He left the room, toying with his flyaway bronze hair, and Cinna smiled softly at the tabletop, wondering if that soft, ticklish feeling hovering in his chest was _happiness_.

* * *

><p>Ten days later, Cinna sat in Finnick's suite at the Training Center, watching the Reaping ceremonies unfold with disinterest and distaste. Finnick, clad in glittering gold body paint and carrying his trident, was somewhere down the hall hobnobbing with Gamemakers and fellow Victors alike – but within spitting distance of his stylist, in case that gold body paint got smeared. After the incident with the anglerfish costume, Finnick and his fashions had to be on their very best behavior.<p>

Cinna couldn't help biting his thumbnail as the Tributes from Five were announced, despite not knowing anyone in the District. It didn't even look familiar now, the way it was filmed and framed by Panem flags.

"And your male Tribute is… Greggory Watson!"

An ashen, familiar-faced little boy – he could not have been older than twelve; Cinna knew with stomach-dropping certainty —stumbled his way to the stage. He had his arms wrapped around his chest like fruitless armor. Cinna perfectly recognized the look of relieved fear in Greggory Watson's eyes.

Because they were Cinna's eyes, too.

Finnick burst into the room and had his arms around Cinna before the older man could even react. Finnick held Cinna's face into his shoulder and Cinna could feel the dewy heat of Finnick's skin, smell the citrus soap that Finnick used and taste the salt that rose from his skin. Then Finnick pulled back, just as suddenly, and held Cinna's face in urgent hands.

"That's _you_," he gasped, and the pale sea green of his eyes reflected the District Five Reaping speech like mirrors. "Cinna, that Tribute is _you_."

Cinna nodded, still staring at Greggory Watson. At the cowlick in his dark brown hair that made it fall in a C-curve over his high, arched brow. At the cut of his jaw and how, if he were anything close to smiling, he would have dimples. The tiny cleft in his chin. His dark, sharp green eyes with their pupils blown wide as he took in District Five for the last time.

"You didn't tell me you had a son," Finnick hissed, shaking Cinna's shoulders. "You said there was nothing they could use against you!"

"I didn't know," Cinna said. He watched as Eugenia Crimble put her hand on Greggory Watson's back to lead him off the stage and into the Justice Hall, and he saw Greggory shiver away from her touch. "Look at him, Finnick. He must have happened when I was – what, ten?" He exhaled. "I didn't realize that…"

Finnick wrapped his arms around Cinna's shoulders again. "You didn't think he'd be old enough for the Reaping?"

Cinna shook his head. "I didn't think they were making people yet. I knew – I _know_that one of Snow's pet projects is breeding perfect Peacekeepers, but I'd always – " He felt his air cut off with a gulp, and he had to shake his head and pull himself free of Finnick Odair's embrace, out of the overwhelmingly heavy weight of being touched. "I'd always thought that they were still coming out wrong. Their telomeres were too short. They… got old when they were still young. They weren't able to produce white blood cells. Their hearts were too big. I was under the impression that the first viable fetii didn't happen until maybe five years ago. The girl – their surrogate was Reaped, and someone had to take her place, and then she bled out giving birth anyway. I thought – back then, they were still destroying the embryos when they were wrong."

"Maybe he isn't wrong," Finnick said softly as they stared at the blank television screen.

"He isn't," Cinna whispered, wrapping his arms around himself like fruitless armor. "He's… they're just destroying him anyway."

Finnick looked over at Cinna. "If you want to see if you can get a placement with District Five – "

"No," Cinna said sharply. "No. He is going to die. I couldn't survive those Games, neither can he. We're just not equipped for it." Cinna took a deep breath and relaxed his muscles one by one, down his neck, through his shoulders, down the arms and into his hands until finally his numb fingers relaxed and began to pulse warm. "That's why he's in the Games. Somehow, they know that I wanted to fight them anyway. And I'll watch myself fail."

Finnick reached out and wrapped his hand around Cinna's wrist. "If you want to step back from me, from the Rebellion – "

"No," Cinna said with sudden clarity, "They can get rid of one of me, but it's going to take a lot more than terrorism to break both of me. Because it's not just the Tributes, Finnick. Everyone in Panem suffers."

He gently pried Finnick's hand away from his wrist and rubbed at his skin like it had been burnt, and in a way it had: he could feel invisible fingers sticking to him still, twitching against his skin like manacles.

"Sorry," Finnick said, looking down to where Cinna was rubbing at his own wrist, frowning. "I didn't think – I was just so surprised." He shook his head and his hands mussed the coif Cinna spent half an hour styling that morning. "You know it's bad when something they do can surprise me."

Cinna nodded. "It is bad. But I didn't know him, Finnick. He's not really my family. It's not the same as Annie."

Finnick looked up and the color drained from his face.

"Annie," he hissed like a curse, and turned to run out of the room.

Cinna watched him go and sat down hard on the white sofa, staring at the videoscreen on the wall now broadcasting the District Eight square. He leaned over to the table and programmed in a drink order, rubbing his temple until the gin rickey slid up from the tabletop.

He sipped it slowly, not quite watching the pundits and opinionmakers chatter. He heard enough to know they'd hoped for an interior Arena this year; there hadn't been a Games held in the starkness of a city or a box or a bank vault in almost a decade.

What would it look like, he wondered, to see _himself_battling through complete darkness, like the first Quarter Quell? Or to starve locked in a safe, like the year that Three girl won, and all of the fashion glossies were dedicated to ribcages and vertebrae for months?

What would it feel like to see _himself_kill another human being?

Cinna was lost in thought when Finnick slid back into the room, shutting the door behind him and muttering 'Beetee' so softly that Cinna barely heard him.

"Is Annie alright?" Cinna asked, settling his empty glass back on the tabletop. "And do you want a drink?"

"Yes to both," groaned Finnick, sagging down where he sat against the door. "I'm so fragum _sick_of this."

"What?" Cinna asked, dialing Finnick's drink order into the panel.

"Their games. And their _Games_. What they do to everyone I care about just because they can. I'm sick of _Panem_," Finnick growled. "I'm fucking sick of it."

Finnick's extra-strong, extra-sweet cocktail slid up from Kitchens and Cinna brought it over to him, kneeling down on the floor beside him.

"Finnick," he said evenly, pressing the glass into the other man's hand, "How do you feel about showing everyone just how sick of Panem you are?"

_PAGE C: Capitol Celebrity Coverage_  
><em>GET TRIBUTE ALERTS ON YOUR COMM • LATERAN SIXTUS GIVES THE ODDS ON BETTING POOL 073 • SPOTTED! ENOBARIA AND GLOSS KNOCK-DOWN, DRAG OUT AT ROSE CLUB<em>

_FINNICK ODAIR PUTS ON A STRANGE FACE_  
><em>One of the highlights of the programming schedule is the Opening Ceremonies of perennial viewer favorite, The Hunger Games, Panem's top-rated broadcast. The top designers and stylists from Hemant to Brabantio pull out all the stops to make the Tributes look their Capitol best, but we look forward all year to the return of our all-time favorites and their fabulous frills.<em>

_District One Mentor Cashmere stunned in a silver bandage dress – or maybe just little silver bandages! – by Simoens (RIGHT) but it was Finnick Odair who surprised most, showing up to the ceremonies wearing only his customary briefs – and ornate black horse-blinders._

_This is the third strange fashion statement by Odair in the week leading up to the Games (who can forget his duct-taped mouth at Cashmere's Victory party [LEFT] or faux bandages of bloody ears at the Mentors' press conference on Tuesday?)._

_No mouth, no ears, no eyes… we're beginning to wonder if you're trying to give us a little hint about one of your famous secrets, Finnick Ohhh!_

Cinna did not want to watch the interviews. He did not want to hear Greggory's voice – his old voice, the way it had been so squeaky at that age – or watch Caesar Flickman fawn over him with those bright red, bloody lips. Someone's stylist was either shirking or outvoted this year.

He bought a coffee and a groosling salad sandwich from a silent, empty café near the design school and headed down the silent street. Echoes of the crowd's laughter and cheers spilled from doorways along the City Circle as chameleon-skinned Capitolites stumbled in and out of betting parlors and clubs and bars, laughing at the drawling accents of the Tributes and loudly hedging bets on first to die and by whom and how. _District One, at the Cornucopia, with a wrench!_

Cinna pulled open the familiar doors of the design school and ducked inside, his footsteps echoing along the crystalline floor past empty classrooms and workshops and studios.

He ducked into his old workspace and smiled: whoever had taken his place was a scientist, too. Chemical formulas and squeaky-clean beakers cluttered the little shelves alongside spools of satiny thread and skeins of soft fabrics awaiting dye. A half-dressed mannequin lurked in the corner, staring eyelessly.

"Hey there, Ribo," he said cheerfully, nodding to the mannequin. "Nice shirt."

"It's a dress, actually," said an amused voice behind him, making him jump. "And her name is Atilia."

Cinna turned, faced with a black-haired girl a few years his junior. Her coal black eyes were ringed in bright, sunny leopard spots and long false lashes, but the rest of her face was a natural porcelain, a little flushed from the summer heat outside. She, too, carried a groosling salad sandwich and a cup of coffee, and Cinna smiled at her.

"Is this your studio now?"

She nodded. "I'm Portia."

"Cinna," he offered. "It was mine, last year."

"I know who you are," Portia said, scuttling into the room and pushing some papers aside on her desk so she could spread out her lunch. "You work for Finnick Odair."

"For now," Cinna agreed. "Why aren't you watching the Games interviews?"

Portia didn't look up from where she was halving her sandwich. "My kids are going to die."

"I'm sorry," Cinna said, and meant it. "Most of them are."

"My girl had a baby less than a month ago," Portia muttered, taking the lid from her coffee cup. "A litter of them. I think _they're_going to be in the Arena, too."

"You have District Five," Cinna said. "I'm from Five. I grew up there."

Portia tilted her head to look up at him. "I can tell. You look like Ry."

Cinna's mouth twisted and he nodded. "Is that what he goes by?"

"Isn't he your brother?" Portia asked, picking a stack of books off the second chair for Cinna.

"No," Cinna said, taking the lid from his own cup as he sat. "I've never met him. I never knew he existed. And I doubt he knows me."

Portia's eyes narrowed as she considered him. "You look _too_like him."

Cinna nodded. "He was made from me. For all I know, the girl was, too."

Portia picked at the crust of her sandwich. "He's going to die. He doesn't have a family, doesn't have parents. I'd wondered how someone could have never had parents."

Cinna was quiet for a long time, and Portia was, too, neither of them eating or drinking. The sounds of revelry from the street outside Portia's studio window floated up sporadically.

"I like what you did with Finnick's outfits this week," Portia said finally, chancing a glance over. "Speak no evil, hear no evil, see no evil. It's a folktale from Five, isn't it?"

Cinna almost smiled. "It is. How did you know?"

"Greggory told me," Portia said. "He recognized it at the Opening Ceremonies, backstage. He's smart. And creative. He's beautiful enough that he could have Sponsors, if he presented himself better."

"I don't think he wants to win," Cinna said, finally taking a bite from his sandwich. "I wouldn't. Five isn't worth going home to, and the life of a Victor – "

"You lose either way, it seems to me." Portia smiled sadly. "I don't think I want my kids to win. But I can't watch them lose, _I can't_. I worked One last year, and I hated them, so it was okay to – " She broke off. "It wasn't okay. But it was better than this will be. I hate the Hunger Games."

"Why do you work them, then?" Cinna asked. "Go into private styling."

Portia laughed. "Right, because anyone hires a female designer. Name one."

Cinna looked over at the mannequin. "I'm sorry."

Portia shrugged. "It's the way things are in Panem."

"It doesn't have to be," Cinna whispered. Portia's eyes snapped to his. "I'll talk to Finnick Odair for you. You might be able to do each other a mutual favor."

Portia smirked. "No offense to your employer, but he's not exactly my type."

Cinna grinned. "Well, then you'll get along famously. He likes people who aren't his type." He rolled his eyes. "Or at least, he likes torturing people who aren't his type. That man can turn _anything_into an innuendo. But no – I think he has some ideas that you might like, and you probably have some ideas that he needs. I'll put in a good word. If Ribo likes you, your designs can't be that bad."

Portia smiled. "Thanks."

Cinna stood, throwing the wrapper of his sandwich into the overflowing trash. "Does… does Greggory have a Token?"

Portia shook her head. "Neither of them do."

Cinna nodded, considering the mannequin. It was indeed a dress; the full skirt was almost completely invisible from this angle, camouflaged with hundreds of tiny mirrors. Portia was good.

Portia would be useful.

He pulled a stick of charcoal from the packet in his pocket. "Will you give this to him? It's not from Five, but… he should have something, in the end."

Portia smiled and took it. "I will. It was good to meet you, Cinna."

"It was good to meet you, too. I look forward to working with you sometime," Cinna said sincerely. "Expect a call from Finnick or Sulla after the Games."

"I look forward to it," Portia said. "And Cinna? I'm glad to know that Ry would have grown up good. He's a great kid."

Cinna swallowed. He didn't have words, and he wasn't good with emotions – he always bottled them inside, letting them out only through his designs, and he wasn't designing now sans that stick of charcoal – so he just nodded awkwardly and left.

* * *

><p>Greggory was the youngest, the smallest, the palest, and the most skittish of all of the Tributes entering the Arena. Cinna watched from Finnick's couch as his own younger face stood on a plate at the edge of the Arena, trembling and looking from face to face around the circle.<p>

He almost wished the clone would step off the plate and end things now.

It would be easier than anything that could be yet to come.

But the Hunger Games began and Greggory – eighty pounds soaking wet – ran for the golden horn of the Cornucopia, settled in the heart of a bright, eerily green forest Arena. He ran more quickly than Cinna remembered being able to run at his age and he wondered if maybe the scientists had been getting closer to perfect Peacekeepers for longer than he'd thought.

Greggory grabbed a backpack before most of the Tributes had even reached the thicket hiding the base of the golden horn, and then he disappeared as though into thin air between the full foliage below the horn, where he hid until the bloodbath was over and the bodies collected.

Cinna stared into the face he'd poked and prodded at every night of Second School as Greggory crawled out from beneath the bushes and stood, looking out into the trees. The white tail of a deer flashed through the trees to the West, and Cinna could see Greggory assessing it in his mind:

Are all available specimens of juvenile age?  
>Is the chest cavity of the specimen narrower in ratio than in a natural specimen?<br>Are facial or other bodily anomalies present in the specimen that show marked difference from a natural specimen of similar species?

_Mutts_.

Greggory ran the other way, backpack thumping against his skinny back, and scrambled up a tree. A few hours later, the little girl from Twelve approached one of the deer with wonder in her eyes, and minutes later, all that was left of her were her bones.

Greggory had a skill that the other Tributes were lacking, and against his will, Cinna felt his heart soar with the strangest, newest sensation of ill-gotten hope.

Thunderstorms wracked the Arena every night, strings of lightning forking the sky above the rickety trees. A rogue – or not-so-rogue – bolt felled the boy from Four only a few feet from where Greggory hid beneath a bush, and Finnick didn't return home that night.

Cinna had planned on ignoring the Games, but it was harder to pretend his own flesh and blood didn't exist than he'd expected. He had lunch with Portia twice over the following week of Gameplay, but they didn't talk much about Greggory or Finnick or Panem. She asked how he had made Finnick's anglerfish; he wanted a tour of her design space.

She was smart, and she was beautiful, and she had no interest in him as a man. Cinna loved being around her, and he took a strange sort of comfort in Finnick's constant ribbing and nakedness. It was dependable, and it meant Finnick had returned from his Sponsorship-raising in one piece. Most of the time.

But whenever he was alone, he turned on the videoscreen in Finnick's suite and watched Greggory hide. He had begun to track one of the stronger solitary Tributes, the boy from Nine. Greggory ate from Boy Nine's scraps, hid in Boy Nine's previous forts, drank only from the water sources Boy Nine survived.

Boy Nine was gathering sticks to make a small fire before the nightly thunderstorm, Greggory silent in a tree overhead, when the deer came. Blood trickled in rivulets down its gentle, majestic, soft throat as it ripped long strips of Boy Nine from his bones with its tiny, sharp teeth. And then there was only the deer, a skeleton, and the canon overhead that made it look up and see the boy in the tree.

It rammed its head against the trunk and the tree shook. Greggory clung on.

It rammed the tree again, and Greggory slipped.

He landed on the bones of his inadvertent mentor and the deer pressed its face in close to his, lips pulled back in a grimace.

The camera zoomed in close, Claudius chattering happily about the efficacy of these new muttations from Five and the irony and –

The deer had Greggory's eyes. _Would you look at that? The miracle of Five, everyone! _

Cinna watched as the two creatures that shared his DNA stared each other down in the Arena. The forked tongue of the deer mutt swept out and licked a shiny red acid-burn into Greggory's cheek.

Then it turned, and galloped away.

Five Tributes left in the Arena. Greggory touched the burn with shaking fingers, snatched up Boy Nine's discarded backpack, and ran away to hide in another tree just as the nightly thunderstorm began, lightning crackling overhead.

Hours later, Cinna woke up to a hand on his shoulder and he jerked away, kicking wildly.

"Sorry, sorry," Finnick whispered hurriedly, pulling back. His green eyes were huge in the dark, spillover from the lights of the City Circle reflecting in little moons off his pupils. "Cinna… it's Greggory. The Careers turned on each other. It's going to be him or Girl Two."

Cinna jerked upright and wiped his eyes. "He could win? He could live?"

"If those deer get to her before she gets to him, he probably will," Finnick said, his voice tight and high in his chest. "Cinna, if he does – what do you want to do about him?"

Cinna's mouth felt dry. "I don't… I don't know him. What is there to do?"

"If he goes back to Five, he has to live through more of what you went through," Finnick hissed. "If he stays in the Capitol? He'll go through what I do."

"Then what is there to – "

"Plutarch can get him out," Finnick said. "There's a – there's a place where he can go that's safe." Finnick paused. "District Thirteen. It's still there, underground. Plutarch can get him there, if that's what you want for him. He doesn't have a family. You're it. You can choose. You can _choose_, Cinna."

Cinna swallowed against the drymouth, dizzy with the first choice in his life that really mattered. "Let's see if he wins, first."

Finnick nodded and stood to go.

Cinna's hand shot out and brushed at the air beside Finnick's hand. "Stay with me until – whatever happens?"

Finnick looked down and half-smiled. He settled onto the mattress beside Cinna, above the covers in his little shorts. Cinna clicked on the videoscreen.

A huge herd of white-tailed deer mutts stampeded across the forest arena as lightning crackled fast as an inferno overhead. Girl Two screamed as the deer bore down on her and Cinna's heart sped –

But the deer ran past, screeching horrible, almost-human-voiced screams, barreling across the dry forest.

Girl Two looked shocked. Then the screaming of the deer was drowned out by a wild, untamable roar and Girl Two froze, facing the thing that chased away the mutts.

A wall of fire raced through the forest. Before she could move, Girl Two was swallowed up in the blaze.

"He won," Cinna croaked, fists clenching. "Get him out! He won! Where's the hovercraft? He won! They need to get him – "

Finnick's hands pressed to his mouth. "I think it's like Annie," he whispered. "The lightning… it must have gotten the trees…"

"No," Cinna said, shaking his head, "No, they control the lightning. They can get him out."

The cameras found Greggory hiding in the top branches of the deadwood trees. The fire swirled like a ground-borne tornado as it loomed closer and closer.

The hovercraft could reach him. He had won.

The flames gobbled up the deer with Cinna's eyes. Their dying calls sounded like his voice.

"Get him out!" Cinna whispered. Finnick looked to him and he looked back. "Plutarch is always on the hovercrafts, right? Tell him to get him out! Call him on the comm now!"

Finnick shook his head. "If the cameras can see him, they know where he is. They made Annie tread water for days. They didn't want her to win. But she refused to lose."

"You can't float in a fire," Cinna spat. "They can't make him _wait it out_. He'll _die_. He won! He's not supposed to die!"

"He wasn't supposed to win," Finnick whispered. "There have been years without Victors before."

The fire was beautiful as it swirled through the Arena, climbing kudzu and ferns like a bright-glowing ladder: yellow and red and white with bits of blue; sparks catching in the night sky like stars, bursting and raining more fire into the canopy of the trees.

The camera panned across the solid mass of roiling flames as it approached Greggory's tree.

He closed his eyes, and for the first time, Cinna heard him speak.

"The Victor of the 73RD Hunger Games," he whispered, holding the stick of charcoal in his bruised and blackened fingers. Sparks caught in his hair and made him glow. "Male version 1.2415, Greggory. District Five."

And then he was engulfed in tongues of fire.

Cinna stared as the screen cut over to a feed of Seneca Crane looking oh-so-sorry about the miscalculations of the lightning. He addressed his sympathy to 'the good people of District Five, who raised the abandoned child Greggory as their own, and to whom credit was due for breeding a Hunger Games Victor.'

Cinna set his jaw.

"Mr. Odair," he said brusquely, turning to face the ashen-faced man beside him. "I'd like to tender my resignation from your service. I'm going to apply for a styling position in the Hunger Games."

Finnick had the long, sparkling line of a tear pooled under his eye. "I'll pull some strings for you."

Cinna let Finnick drop his face into Cinna's shoulder to mourn everything Panem always lost. Cinna stared across the dark room at the reflection of his eyes in the black videoscreen, waiting in the hush, basking in the thing that ignited inside him.

* * *

><p>The crowd in the stadium hushed, and their cheering grew into a howl like the sound of a forest, an Arena, a country setting itself ablaze as the chariot began its rounds, the precious cargo inside beaming, waving, holding hands: <em>glowing<em>.

"You set them on fire," Finnick breathed. "They're _beautiful_, Cinna. It's perfect."

Cinna let the roar of the crowd and the circus of the ceremony and the brilliant, winking flames on Katniss Everdeen's dress and the blinding, faithful smile on Peeta Mellark's face wash over him and he shivered deep in the base of his spine.

Blindly, Cinna reached beside him and brushed the back of his wrist against the warmth of Finnick's skin. He wrapped his fingers around the rough, callused fisherman's hand and squeezed.

"Finnick?" Cinna whispered, looking up at the dancing, radiant flames in the dark.

"Yeah?"

"I don't hate this job."


	4. District Twelve: The Girl with the Boy

**Author**: **aimmyarrowshigh**  
><strong>Fandom<strong>: _The Hunger Games_, Suzanne Collins  
><strong>Story Title<strong>: "Five Places Cinna Came From"  
><strong>Summary<strong>: _Cinna did not come from the Capitol. Five paths he took out of the Districts, and why he set a nation on fire._  
><strong>CharacterRelationships**: (Specific to each section; listed on those pages.) OVERALL - Cinna/Finnick, Finnick/Annie, Katniss/Peeta. Johanna. Haymitch. Beetee. Mags. President Snow.  
><strong>Rating<strong>: M  
><strong>Warnings<strong>: There are very separate, very specific trigger warnings on each District's story, so please read those if you have concerns.  
><strong>Wordcount<strong>: (total) 86,000  
><strong>Disclaimer<strong>: I only own the original characters and concepts. All settings and proprietary language are owned by the author of the work from which this is derived.  
><strong>Notes<strong>: Originally written for **panemetfabulae** for **sihaya09**. She wanted "Finnick POV pre-canon, AUs where different people died in/survived Mockingjay, or Johanna POV on how she won her games," so here are four pre-canon Finnicks and a How Johanna Won Her Games. :) I really hope you enjoy it! I would never have managed to finish this without **poppypickle**, **badguys**, **electrumqueen**, **puella_nerdii**, **glycerineclown**, **lovepollution**, **skellerbvvt**, and **rurone**.

* * *

><p><strong>Author<strong>: **aimmyarrowshigh**  
><strong>Fandom<strong>: _The Hunger Games_, Suzanne Collins  
><strong>Story Title<strong>: "Five Places Cinna Came From: District Twelve (The Girl with the Boy)"  
><strong>CharacterRelationships**: Cinna, Peeta, Katniss, Haymitch, Madge Undersee, Mrs. Undersee, Mr. Mellark. Cinna/OC, Peeta/Katniss (sort of).  
><strong>Rating<strong>: M  
><strong>Warnings<strong>: Spoilers for _The Hunger Games_ and _Catching Fire_. Violence, sexual content, bad language, character death, physical/verbal/emotional domestic abuse, pregnancy loss, familial death. All of the usual feel-good content of Collins' _Hunger Games_ world!  
><strong>Major trigger warnings:<strong> Physical/verbal/emotional domestic abuse, pregnancy loss.  
><strong>Wordcount<strong>: 86,000  
><strong>Disclaimer<strong>: I only own the original characters and concepts. All settings and proprietary language are owned by the author of the work from which this is derived.

**Five Places Cinna Came From  
><em>District Twelve: The Girl with the Boy<em>**

**004. District Twelve**  
>"Cinna!"<p>

Cinder grinned as he caught the five-year-old up in a bear hug and lifted him off the ground, tossing him once and laughing. Cinder set him down on the glass counter and handed him one of the dusty toffees from behind the register.

"How was your first day of school, Peeta?"

Peeta Mellark stuck the candy in his mouth, frowned, took it out, and dusted it off on his sleeve before sucking on it again. His blue eyes were wide and serious as he stared up at Cinder. "I met the girl I'm going to marry."

Cinder laughed. "Oh, really? Who is it? Delly Cartwright? Madge Undersee? Louise Groverton?"

Peeta shook his head. "No, I know all them already, silly." He sighed. No, he _swooned_. "Her name is Katniss Everdeen." Then he looked over his shoulder and beckoned Cinder closer. He cupped his toffee-sticky fingers over Cinder's ear and whispered, "She's from the Seam."

Cinder looked down at Peeta. "Why the secrecy?"

Peeta looked embarrassed and knocked his heels against the glass case. "Well… my mother says that the Seam is bad."

Cinder frowned. "The Seam isn't bad, Peeta. You know Magdalen is from the Seam, too, right?"

Peeta looked down at his knees. "Yes. But my mother and Barm had a big fight about it last night. My mother says that Magdalen is just trying to get your money like all the other Seam girls. Barm said – " Peeta cut off and looked troubled. "Barm said that it isn't Magdalen's fault that my dad doesn't love my mother enough, and that me and him and Lavash are going to your wedding anyway, and she shouldn't be so bitter."

Cinder felt his eyebrows somewhere in the vicinity of his hairline. "Oh?"

"Yes," Peeta confirmed. "And then I said that I think Magdalen is pretty, and that I thought she loved you a lot and it didn't matter that you have more money, because you told me that you love her a lot, and then my mother–" Peeta stopped and blushed. "I mean, and then I ran into the door."

Cinder felt the familiar rush of anger. "Where this time, Peeta?"

Peeta looked abashed and swallowed the toffee. He rolled up his sleeve and showed Cinder the five-fingered bruise, festering dark brown and greenish gold. "I just ran into the door."

"Uh-huh," Cinder said. "You ought to be more careful, Peeta. If you keep running into doors, one of these days, you'll fall right out of the house."

Peeta bit his lip and nodded. "I know. I'm just clumsy, I guess."

Cinder stooped down to look Peeta in the eyes. "You can learn to be less clumsy, Peeta. Every person needs to hear things said in a different way. And that's not lying, okay, it's just being careful. Like… when Mayor Undersee comes in, and he wants to buy a suit, can I tell him that I need to make his pants wider because he's so tall and chunky?"

Peeta laughed. "No!"

Cinder grinned back. "No! So what do I say?"

Peeta's mouth twitched. "Hmmm. You could say… that… he should get a bigger sized pair, and you'd be happy to hem them?"

Cinder nodded. "Right. So when your mom says she hates people from the Seam and you disagree, what can you say next time?"

Peeta shook his head. "Nothing?"

Cinder patted Peeta's shoulder and nodded. "Right."

"I do disagree, though," Peeta said earnestly. "And I do think Magdalen's really pretty. But I don't understand how you're getting married. You're not a grown-up."

The bell on the door of the tailor's shop chimed, soft and ringing, and Cinder looked up with a thousand-watt smile. "Why don't you ask Magdalen?"

Magdalen Glass was a wiry girl, limbs cut lean without an ounce of fat and with slight, hard swells of muscle that she would tease were more impressive than Cinder's (and she was right). She had smooth skin the color of the undersides of autumn leaves and piercing gray eyes that were always laughing. She wore her dark curtain of Seam hair in a long braid that was so heavy it could leave bruises if it hit someone wrong, and Cinder loved to unplait it at the end of the day and slip his fingers through her curls.

Peeta took a flying leap off the countertop and ran for her. "Magdalen!" He threw his arms around her waist and then pulled back. He stared at her at eye-level for a long moment before looking up to her face. "You should buy some bigger pants, and then have Cinna hem them."

Magdalen tilted her head. "What?"

"Nothing," Cinder said, shaking his head. He kissed her quickly as Peeta giggled. "How are you feeling?" He nosed her ear. "And how is he?"

"I'm fine, just usual," Magdalen said. "And _she_is fine, too. Is it time for Peeta's art lessons? Should I come back later?"

"Stay, stay!" urged Peeta. "You can paint, too." He wrapped his hand around Magdalen's fingers. "Come on!"

Magdalen looked over to Cinder. "Do you mind if I stay?"

Cinder shook his head. "No… I can always use my muse."

"What's a muse?" Peeta asked. "Is it like a wife?"

"No," Magdalen said, ruffling Peeta's hair. "A muse is someone who inspires you."

"What's inspires?"

"It means that when you look at them, you see everything that's beautiful in the world and none of the bad things," Cinder said, putting his hand on the small of Magdalen's back as he led them to the workroom off the side of the tailor's showroom, where two easels were set up – one big one, for Cinder, and a little one for Peeta. "A muse is the person who makes you feel like you can always be better."

Peeta smiled. "I met my muse today, then, too!" He swooned again, sighing dramatically and flopping onto the little stool in front of his easel. "Magdalen, she's from the Seam, too! Do you know her? Her name is Katniss Everdeen. Are all muses from the Seam?"

"No, not all muses are from the Seam," Magdalen laughed, settling down on the platform in front of the easels. "And yes, I know _of_Katniss, but I don't know her. Her mom is the Healer, so just about everyone in the Seam knows her. I saw her today, actually, just a little while ago."

Peeta frowned and peeked out around his canvas. "Are you sick?"

Magdalen smiled and locked eyes with Cinder, who nodded. "No, I'm not sick."

"Peeta?" asked Cinder, "Remember how you asked why Magdalen and I are getting married even though we aren't grown-ups?"

Peeta nodded. His paintbrush dripped with bright rust-orange.

"Well," Magdalen said, "Cinder and I… are having a baby."

"But you aren't married yet," Peeta said, swirling his paintbrush in the water. "So how can you be having a baby?"

"Well," Cinder said carefully, "Sometimes… it… just… happens that way."

"But a wedding is where babies come from," Peeta said, sticking the paintbrush into the palette of yellow, "You go to the Justice Building, and you sign a paper for the Capitol, and they hand you a baby. And then you're married."

Magdalen and Cinder exchanged looks over the top of Cinder's canvas.

"That's – that's not right, Peeta," Magdalen said.

"Well, that's what Barm said at the last Reaping," Peeta shrugged. "He said the only way to get out of a Reaping is to get a baby and the Capitol only gives you a baby if you have a marriage. So you have to have a marriage to get out of Reaping. That's why he and Lavash have to put in their names and stand in the pen. And that's why I'm going to have to stand in the pen, unless I can get Katniss to marry me and we get a baby." He frowned. "But I didn't think they gave them to kids."

"Well, we're not really 'kids,' Peeta," said Cinder, giving Magdalen a bald look that read loud and clear across his green eyes: _How did this topic come up and what, WHAT, do we tell the five-year-old blabbermouth?_

Peeta chuckled and painted a long stripe across his paper. "You're kids if you're in the Reaping. That's the point."

"What are you painting, Peeta?" asked Magdalen quickly, changing the subject. The light from the window caught her dark hair and made it shine six shades of blue and soft maroon, and Cinna slashed paint across the canvas in staccato dabs to catch its radiance.

"My muse," Peeta said absently, drawing the brush over his little canvas in a painstaking circle. He caught his tongue between his teeth as he filled it in. "She's standing inside the sun and singing a song and the birds are all listening to her. That's what happened at school today."

"She stood inside the sun?" asked Magdalen. "How did that happen?"

"She was standing up at the assembly and the sun came through the window and lit her up and she was in it," Peeta explained as though Magdalen were a little slow. "And she sang the Anthem. And guess what?"

"What?" Magdalen asked, a little smile on her face. Peeta rinsed his brush and globbed on some bright red.

"My dad said that he used to be in love with her mom," said Peeta. "And then she ran away with a coal miner and my dad had to marry my mother."

Cinder kept painting, shading a dusk-blue into Magdalen's gray eyes. Everyone knew that story.

"Peeta, your dad loves your mom and you and Lavash and Barm very much," Magdalen said gently. "You know that, don't you?"

"Yup," Peeta said, untroubled. He painted a little more and wiped his nose, smudging it with yellow. "But my mother doesn't."

"Yes, she does, Peeta. All mothers love their babies," assured Magdalen, sharing a smile with Cinder around the side of his canvas. Cinder thickened the curve of Magdalen's lip in his painting, trying to match the sweet heart-shaped bow in the middle.

"Well, I was a mistake," Peeta said, matter-of-fact. "And my dad doesn't earn enough money to feed me. So we gotta take more tesserae. And Barm and Lavash are useful, so I gotta earn my keep."

"Did she say that to you, Peeta?" Cinder asked, aghast, settling down his brush.

Peeta nodded and scratched his nose again, staining his sleeve. "Do you have more candy?"

Cinder nodded and stood, getting another dusty toffee from beneath the register. "Peeta, you don't need to be anything other than who you are. You're wonderful with clearing the tables and working the register and you can already bake well enough to put me _or_Magdalen to shame, so you're just as useful as Barm and Lavash, okay? Just be Peeta."

Peeta dipped the toffee into his rinsing water and stuck it in his mouth. He nodded and squinted at his canvas, squeezing a little green onto his palette.

The sun started to sink outside the windows, flooding the back room of the tailor shop with caramel light and making everything glow softly, the dust catching and reflecting the light. Cinder abandoned his canvas and grabbed his sketchbook, trying to capture all the angles and shapes of the shadows before they melted – the pale light of Peeta's hair, the indulgent smirk on Magdalen's mouth as she watched his artistic furor take over, the headless curvature of his ancient dressmaking forms casting long, ghost-story lines across the cracked wooden floor.

The tailor shop was home, and always had been. Until Cinder was fourteen, his family – just he, his mother, and his father – had lived upstairs. But after his father died, Cinder and his mother moved into the spare bedroom of his grandmother's house, just a few streets away. Cinder moved back into the little loft above the shop a few months later, going over to his grandmother's house only for meals and to deliver rations.

That first year, he had needed to take out a tessera, and it was the singularly most terrifying, and humiliating, experience of his life to know that he was signing a bit of his soul away just for some grain and oil.

After he'd finished cleaning up the messes of his father, the tailor shop flourished as it never had. With only his mother to support, Cinder never needed to take tesserae again. There were a few other merchant kids who didn't – the undertaker's children had never needed them; the Peacekeepers' children were exempt – but it set Cinder apart at school. It was more than having money. It was like having an extra shot at life that no one else was privy to, not even Barm, and the bakery did more business in a day than any of the other shops combined. Except maybe The Hob, but that didn't count.

Magdalen had four younger siblings and a father who'd lost a leg, six fingers, and an eye to a mine collapse. She had more tesserae than most.

When the shadows had retreated to the corners and the sky outside the window glowed red, Barm Mellark let himself into the shop and bent to kiss Magdalen's cheek.

"How are you today, little missus?" he asked, an easy, open smile on his face as always. He was stocky and tall and had the sort of face that was handsome once you got to know him.

Barm made a strange picture with Cinder, who was slender and dark-haired and the kind of good-looking that made girls (and housewives) in the street stop to point and giggle and turn their heads to hide their blush, but the two were thick as thieves.

"I'm doing fine, Barmbrack," Magdalen said, with a pat to his cheek. "Your brother was telling me about how he met his future wife today."

"Ah, yes," said Barm. "The Everdeen girl." He looked down at Peeta. "So I heard… fifty-six times between picking him up at the school and getting him here."

Peeta scowled. "Not fifty-six. And you weren't _listening_."

"I was listening, I was listening," laughed Barm. "C'mon, Peeta," said Barm, scooping him up. "Let's go home. You've gotta set the table tonight. And remember what happened last time – "

"Forks go on the left," Peeta said seriously, holding up his hands to check which was left. Cinder noticed, for the first time, the row of four little red scabs on the back of Peeta's left hand.

"Right," said Barm, shouldering open the tailor shop door. "Seeya, Cinder. Magdalen."

Magdalen waved. "Bye, Barm. Good-bye, Peeta."

"Bye, Magdalen!" Peeta called, waving. "Barm?" Peeta asked thoughtfully as he was carried out of the tailor shop, "Where do babies really come from?"

Cinder tossed his head back and laughed as he locked the doors, a blinding stripe of yellow sunlight shining through the high windows. "Oh, Barm is going to _kill us_for that one."

Magdalen grinned back and shook her head, coming over to wrap her arms around Cinder's waist. "You, maybe. So he can step in and take your place."

Cinder turned and nuzzled her hair. "Not a chance." He reached behind him and laid a hand over Magdalen's hip. "So what did Mrs. Everdeen say?"

"Nothing new," Magdalen said. "Just asked how I'm feeling, took my weight. She said I should be eating more."

"We'll talk to Farll," Cinder promised. "Maybe we can make a trade for a deal on bread."

"I don't even know _how_to eat more." Magdalen half-laughed. "Greasy Sae's been giving me soupbowls the size of my head."

Cinder turned around in her embrace so he could kiss her forehead and hold her close. "I'll help you work up an appetite."

Magdalen shoved his arm. "Yeah, you've done enough of that."

"Speaking of, I've been thinking of names," Cinder said, running his nose along Magdalen's ear.

"Oh, really?" Magdalen asked, smiling, catching his wandering hands and settling them on her hips. "Like what?"

"Well, I was thinking… maybe… Adrian," Cinder suggested, dropping down into one of the squashy armchairs in the showroom and pulling Magdalen down into his lap. "Or Quince?"

"Cripes," Magdalen laughed, pushing his face away. "Those are such merchy names."

"Oh, what do you want to call him? Bit? Cleat?" Cinder laughed, tickling her sides. "Shaft?"

"You're going to be so embarrassed when she's a girl," Magdalen said smugly. "And I wouldn't be opposed to naming her Brattice, no."

Cinder wrinkled his nose as he pulled aside the collar stand of her loose blouse, baring her shoulder. "That's a terrible name for a boy."

Magdalen rolled her eyes. "You're impossible." Then she sighed. "Adit and Tipple don't want to come to the wedding," Magdalen said sadly, snuggling back against Cinder's chest.

"I didn't think they hated me _that_much," Cinder said, wrapping his arms around her and tipping his face forward to kiss the brown curve of her shoulder. "Why not?"

"You know why not," Magdalen sighed. Cinder unwound the ties from her hair and combed his fingers through the long strands. "They hate coming to the merchant quarters. And they think I'm betraying everyone for moving out here."

"Well, what do they want you to do?" Cinder asked. "I have to keep the shop, and you're – you're _good_at upholstery, pipit. And… you're better than working in the mines. It's not safe, and you're too important."

"That's just it," Magdalen said, dropping her head to Cinder's shoulder. "I'm not better than the mines. At least, not more than Adit or Tipple or anyone. But I'm getting out. You're not supposed to make it out of the Seam."

Cinder kissed the side of Magdalen's face. "Well… I guess we're just lucky." He pulled back. "I've got a surprise for you."

Magdalen raised an eyebrow.

"Stand up," Cinder said, grinning so hard his face hurt. Magdalen stood and Cinder scooted around her to the revolving rack of clothes to be pressed and delivered.

"You didn't – " Magdalen gasped, her hands coming up to cup her face.

Cinder pulled a garment bag from the rack. "I made you a wedding gown."

He smiled at her like he had when he was fifteen and stumbling over his words as she smirked knowingly at him back behind the schoolhouse, both of them carrying paintbrushes and empty glass jars.

"I can't believe you," Magdalen whispered, one hand covering her mouth. "Cinna…"

"I wanted to," Cinder said, coming over and kissing her soundly on the mouth. "I never get to design things how I want, so it was a little selfish, anyway. But I just thought… pipit, maybe we're not getting married under the most ideal – you know, circumstances, in the world, with – with the Reaping coming up and everything, and… I can't change Panem, but I want to try to make it better for you."

Magdalen kissed him. "I don't need anything except you, you know."

Cinder smiled. "Do you want to see the dress?"

Magdalen bit her lip. "I don't know… I heard it's bad luck for the groom to see the dress before the wedding."

"I don't think that counts if the groom designed it," Cinder said loftily. He laughed. "Cripes, we really are doing this entire wedding thing backwards, aren't we?"

Magdalen smiled knowingly and unzipped the garment bag, revealing a stripe of soft white linen and light feathers. "Do you really mind?"

Magdalen squeaked as Cinder swooped her up and dipped her low like a fancy Capitol pre-show dancer, kissing her soundly. His ran his hand over her stomach, spanning the soft skin beneath her plain canvas tunic.

"No," he said, joy prickling through his every bone like a hearthfire. "I wouldn't change it for the world." He pulled her upright and held her close. "Now look at your dress so we can go eat."

* * *

><p>"Wake up, pops!"<p>

Cinder raised his head blearily as Barm Mellark threw open the curtains and let early-morning sunshine stream into the little loft above the tailor shop.

"How did you get in?" he asked, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. "What time is it?"

"The bride let me in," Barm explained, tutting around in the corners like a crotchety housewife, batting down a few cobwebs. "And you've only got an hour until the toasting, so you should probably put on some pants. Peeta's downstairs with the bread and the cake, telling Magdalen all about how yesterday, Katniss _didn't_ talk to him, and it was _magical_ and he _loves_her."

"Oh, let him think so," Cinder yawned. "He'll grow out of it soon enough." He paused. "Is anyone else here?"

Barm shook his head sadly. "That old woman is here with the food, but… other than that, no." He tossed Cinder a pressed white shirt and Cinder caught it, frowning at the creases. "I don't think think they're coming, man. Maybe her family, but… the word around school this week was pretty grim."

Cinder pulled on the shirt. "She's going to be so upset."

Barm patted his shoulder. "She won't. You two've got me and Lavash and Peeta and your mom and her family and that old woman with the soup. It'll be fine."

The loft door opened and Magdalen stuck her head in. Peeta's little blond head poked out around the door, too, in the vicinity of her knees.

"Oh, good, you're up," Magdalen said. "It's almost time to go."

"It's almost time to go," echoed Peeta, wagging a finger at Cinder sternly. Then he looked up at Magdalen. "Where are we going again?"

Magdalen smiled down at him. "Cinna and I are having our toasting today."

"Oh, right," Peeta said. "What's a toasting? Isn't that just breakfast? Do we get to eat that cake for breakfast? It's walnut cake. I helped."

"The toasting is part of getting married, Peeta, remember?" Magdalen asked, smoothing Peeta's messy hair. "Cinder and I each hold a slice of bread over the fire to toast them, and then we feed them to each other. Remember?"

"Oh, right," Peeta said sagely, nodding. "Because married people help each other. And that's why my father should earn more money, dammit."

"Peeta!" Magdalen's jaw dropped. "Don't say that word."

"My mother says it all the time," Peeta said, smiling like the cat that got the canary. "And I heard Barm say it yesterday, and Lavash already said it four times today, and one time I heard _you_ say it and then _Cinna_said – "

"Okay, okay," Cinder said, standing up and buckling his best pair of black linen pants. "It doesn't matter what I said. Peeta, don't say 'dammit.' And you're in charge of carrying the bread, okay? Barm, go get the cake and see if Sae needs help with the food. Pipit, do you need help getting into your dress?"

"Aye-aye," said Barm, opening the door and putting a guiding hand to the back of Peeta's head. "C'mon, Peeta."

Magdalen stepped around the Mellark brothers and into the sun-soaked little loft: kitchen along one wall, wardrobe taking up most of another, the bed a third, and the fourth leading off to the tiny bathroom. The ceiling was low and slanted and the windows high, casting oddly shaped shadows over the cramped space. A half-clothed dressform stood eerily in the corner, layers of paint-splashed lace rippling its frame. Magdalen's bow and quiver of arrows shared space with Cinder's paintbrushes and jars and canvas-stretcher in the corner. The few books they'd acquired over their years in school were stacked on the floor.

"Happy toasting day, pipit," murmured Cinder, sliding his hands into her hair. "Are you nervous?"

Magdalen shook her head, eyes shining. "No. Are you?"

Cinder kissed her once, softly. "No. Is everything downstairs ready to go?"

Magdalen nodded, but her smile fell. "Tipple and Adit really aren't coming. I really thought they would – " She shook her head. "I should have known. Nothing in Panem ever changes."

"Sure it does," Cinder said, tucking a strand of her long hair behind her ear. "For example, today, your name changes from Magdalen Glass to Magdalen Foquismo."

She grinned. "And you change from the most eligible bachelor in District Twelve to a married man shackled by this big, fat ball and chain."

Cinder scoffed. "You aren't fat. You're radiant."

"Let's see if you're still saying that a few months from now," grumbled Magdalen. "All right, let's squeeze me into this dress." She looked wistful. "It's a beautiful dress, Cinna. I don't think I'll ever get to wear something this lovely again."

Cinder unbuttoned the long row of simple closures down the back of Magdalen's plain canvas dress, the way he had a thousand times before. "I'm glad you like it, pipit." He kissed her shoulder softly.

It may not have been anywhere near as fine as the dresses in the Capitol or even the wealthier Districts, but linen was scarce in Twelve and the crisp softness of the white fabric seemed to whisper as it slid up Magdalen's body. Cinder guided her arms through the long, flowing sleeves and began to fasten the tiny buttons up her back.

"This is so much fabric," Magdalen whispered, sounding amazed and worried as she fingered the cape of material at her wrists. "There's no way this was cheap, Cinna. There has to be an extra yard here, at least."

He kissed the side of her face. "It's okay. I promise. You deserve this dress."

Magdalen smiled shyly and ran her hands over the sheathing of feathers trailing down the long skirt and the complicated rûching around her waist, soft and expanding material to let her breathe. "Where did you get all the feathers?" She feigned a gasp. "Are you seeing another poacher behind my back?"

Cinna laughed and finished buttoning her dress, patting her rear end appreciatively. "That little kid, Hargoode, Hawthorne, something. He skins before he sells, gets twice the profits. Smart for being so little. I think Farll's getting the meat, but he saved the feathers for me for months."

Magdalen nodded. "It's Hawthorne. Gale. He is good – I taught him snares myself, but he's a better haggler than I am. Probably 'cause he's cute. Maybe I should bring Peeta along and have him haggle for me."

"I think he's too stubborn," Cinder laughed. He smoothed his hands over the shoulders of the white gown, wondering whether he shouldn't have pleated the fan of the sleeves. "I wish I could have gotten you silk. Or velvet."

"Stop," Magdalen said decisively. "The dress is already more than I expected." There was a crash from downstairs. "And that'll be Peeta… and possibly the cake. We should probably go."

Cinder smiled and kissed her. He held her close by the hips and bit his lip. "That was the last kiss before you're my wife."

Magdalen smirked and kissed him, quick, before swirling around in her feathered white dress to sweep out the door. "No. That was. Now come on, before Barm kills Peeta or vice-versa or Greasy Sae kills them both."

None of Magdalen's Seam friends – not Tipple Colliery or Adit Shumake or even the little Hawthorne boy she'd taught snares – ever showed up, but three Mellark brothers could make enough noise and merriment to make up for a crowd. Lavash and one of Magdalen's sisters carried Magdalen's train for her as they walked the two streets to the Justice Building, and Peeta and the littlest sisters chattered away happily, Peeta proudly carrying the long loaf of toasting bread over his shoulder.

The Justice Building was as cold and unforgiving an experience as ever – uninterested and judgmental Capitol clerk raising an eyebrow at Magdalen's belly in scorn; Peeta slipping on the shining, slick floor and starting to cry; endless forms with the Seal of the Capitol to initial and sign here, please, not there, here at the X.

"Weren't you in just a few weeks ago?" asked the clerk finally as Cinder put his hand over the small of Magdalen's back and turned to go.

Cinder nodded. "Declaration papers. We're fully legal now."

The clerk raised a painted eyebrow and started filing her nails into crescent moons. "The Capitol would appreciate all forms to be filed in the proper order according to protocol."

Cinder frowned. "Well, we'll just try harder to be married first next time."

"See that you do."

The toasting itself, back at Cinder's grandmother's house, was much nicer. Magdalen's littlest sister sang a song (which Peeta proclaimed 'not as good as Katniss'), and Cinder's mother presented them with a beautiful ornate quilt and cried, and Barm handed them their slices of savory sour bread, and only sliced them too thin – making Magdalen's piece crumble off into the fire – once before getting it just right.

Greasy Sae and Peeta clapped and Peeta jumped up and down, and Cinder felt like his chest right crack down the middle with joy and swallow up all of Panem in his joy as he kissed Magdalen, tasting burnt crumbs on her lips.

* * *

><p>Cinder smiled and rubbed his hand over the tiny swell of Magdalen's belly below the blankets.<p>

"My last Reaping," he said with relish, "And then you won't have to worry anymore."

There was the tiniest stuttering gasp across the chasm of the pillow and Cinder raised his head blearily. Magdalen had sticky tracks from silent tears dripping down her face.

"We'll always have to worry," she whispered. "What if they choose me next year and you have to raise her – "

"Him."

"Her alone? Or – Cinna, we're going to need tesserae. In twelve years, it could be her. _How_did we think – "

"Hey," Cinder whispered, rolling over to lay above Magdalen, the crest of her belly just barely brushing his. It still gave him a thrill every time. "Pipit, this baby… if I need to cut off my own legs to feed you two then commission me a wheelchair. We will _never_let this baby take out tesserae, okay? You and he and I are all going to be safe. I promise."

He ducked down below the sheets and dappled kisses over the bump. He looked up at Magdalen's teary face.

"I promise," Cinder repeated, his lips brushing her skin.

"But what about next year?" Magdalen asked, her light fingers pushing through Cinder's brown hair.

He grinned and slid back up the length of her body. "Well… we'll just have to make sure you're exempt next year, too."

"Oh, really?" Magdalen asked with a tight laugh as Cinder ran his hands along the insides of her thighs. "And how exactly will we do that?"

Cinder nibbled at her ear. "I thought that was obvious. More babies. We're going to have lots and lots of babies, didn't I tell you?"

"No," laughed Magdalen, curling her arms around Cinder's shoulders as he sank into her. She wound one lean, muscled leg up around his thighs, pulling him in deeper. "I was not aware of this lots-of-babies plan."

"Oh? Well," Cinder sighed, toying with the ends of her long hair, "I think we should have no more than six, but no less than four."

"We can't afford that." Magdalen laughed and tucked her other leg up along her side, hands sliding down to Cinder's waist to feel the muscles shift and flex under his pale skin.

"Sure we can," Cinder said, wrapping a palm around the slats of the headboard. "We can do everything, pipit. It's you and me. We're the luckiest people in Panem."

* * *

><p>"About time, lovebirds," said Barm Mellark, slinging one arm around Cinder's shoulders and the other around Magdalen's waist. He kissed her cheek and asked, "I reckon you haven't come to your senses about picking me over this loser?"<p>

Magdalen patted his face. "Sorry, Barm. Not yet."

"Shucks," Barm whistled. "How are you feeling, dearie?"

"It's the Reaping," Magdalen said. "How is anyone feeling?"

Barm nodded, looking at the dusty road. He glanced back at his mother and little Peeta peeking out at Magdalen from behind the lamppost on the corner; Delly Cartwright, with her chubby belly, pulling at his sleeve.

"I can volunteer for Cinder, if you want," he said. "If he's chosen. My dad's still got Lavash and… Peeta's getting older; he's good at icing the cookies already. I can go. If you want."

Magdalen kissed Barm's scruffy blond cheek. "You Mellarks. You're such bleeding hearts." Then she shook her head. "I can't let you do that, Barmbrack. I'd owe you for the rest of my life, and… well, you'd have to come home so we could pay that back."

Barm nodded and detached from Cinder and Magdalen. "It's almost time, I'm gonna go over." He turned to the knot of small blond merchant children playing on the corner. "Peeta, if you make Tate eat that rock, you're getting dish duty for three days!"

Peeta froze and dropped both the rock and the collar of the undertaker's son. His blue eyes were as round as dinnerplates. Barm sighed and went over to pick Peeta up and bring him over to their parents.

"But Tate called Magdalen a bad word!" Peeta insisted. "What's a 'hussy'?"

Cinder sighed and turned to Magdalen. "Are you okay? You can wait for me at home, if need to. It's going to be all right."

"Don't be silly," Magdalen said bravely, curling her fingers into the soft hair at the nape of Cinder's neck. "I need to be here for you. Cinna," she whispered, "If you do get – "

"I won't," Cinder said firmly, resting his hands on her hips. "Pipit, I won't. I only have eight slips. It won't be me."

Magdalen nodded and wrapped her arms tightly around Cinder's neck. "It better not be, mister. You're kind of important to me."

Cinder smiled back and kissed her softly. "You're everything. It'll be okay." He kissed her again. "I love you."

Magdalen pressed her lips just beneath Cinder's jaw, right in the place that always made him weak in the knees. "I love you. Be safe."

Cinder tugged the end of her braid. "I will. You be safe keeping Peeta out of trouble during the ceremony."

Magdalen managed a smile. "I don't know why you think he's so much trouble. He's perfectly good for me."

Cinder cast her a wry look. "I wonder why that could be."

"Cinder!" Barm called from the boys' pen. "Come on, thirty seconds!"

Cinder kissed Magdalen one last time. "I'll be back to you in less than hour, pipit."

She smiled and squeezed his hand before moving to stand between Farll Mellark, Peeta sitting in the dirt at his feet drawing shapes with his sticky fingers, and Marjorae Undersee, shy little Madge hiding behind her legs. Mahra Mellark sneered at Magdalen, turning to whisper something to her husband that made him frown.

Cinder jogged over to Barm just before they closed off the pen.

"I'm gonna volunteer for you anyway, you know," Barm muttered to Cinder.

"Yeah, I know," Cinder said back, stuffing his hands in his pockets. "Thank you."

Barm nodded. "It's the only thing I could do."

Cinder nodded back and stood, back straight and head high, while Mayor Undersee read out the annual script and introduced Effie Trinket, ageless as always and coiffed with a dark magenta pompadour this year.

"Come on up here, Haymitch!" trilled Effie Trinket, leading the crowd in a sparse applause. Cinder twisted his mouth – Haymitch reminded him of his father, before he died; an unstable drunk with too much money, and rude, to boot. Haymitch shook his head out in the middle of the square and the momentum took him right down onto his ass.

Effie looked troubled. "Well, if you're happy down there, friend."

Haymitch Abernathy looked up at her drowsily. He mumbled something that might have been, "I'm not happy anywhere, _friend_" and passed out in a heap.

Cinder shook his head and caught Barm's eye. "Here goes nothing," he whispered.

"May the odds _ever_be in your favor!" Her white grin twinkled out at the crowd. "So, in honor of our friend Haymitch, how about we choose a strapping young man first to help him on up here?"

Cinder looked across the square to Magdalen. The littlest Undersee, Madge, peeked out from behind Magdalen's long skirt in a riot of white-blonde curls. Magdalen had one dark hand pressed to her stomach and the other clenched to her teeth. Her gray eyes locked to Cinder's on instinct, and he smiled encouragingly.

_I love you_, he mouthed.

Effie reached into the glass ball and Magdalen closed her eyes.

"Inby Haulage!" called Effie, and out in the crowd of adults a Seam woman so old she looked like a wrinkled tree trunk clutched at her chest and fell to her knees.

A ropy, stretched-looking boy no older than thirteen jostled his way out of the boys' pen, his face a mask of white terror.

"Grandma?" he cried, running a few steps towards the adults. Peacekeepers caught him into the arms and pulled him back, and without resistance – without any energy at all – he sagged between them and they let go. Inby Haulage stumbled once, then crept up towards the stage. His hands shook. His knees shook.

Cinder watched him. His pants were too short and badly let out, the old hems still full of pulling strings and holes. His jacket was moth-eaten in places – the lapel, the elbow, one of its false pockets. He had black hair falling over his gray eyes in waves, with sharp cheekbones and a cleft in his chin. He could be Magdalen's brother. He could be what their son would look like at his age, and Cinder felt a little sick and shaky at the thought.

Out in the crowd around the fallen woman, six or seven children too small for the Reaping clutched at her skirts and wailed. Cinder wondered how many tesserae Inby Haulage had taken to support his grandmother and all those children. He thought about Magdalen, with her thirty-five slips, and was glad to know she was out of the running this year. And next year, she would have no new tesserae. Their child would need no tesserae.

And like that, a feeling of relief and lightness so absolute that Cinder felt drunk himself washed over him. He was eighteen years old, and his name had not been called. Magdalen already stood away from the girls' pen, safe.

His nightmare of the Hunger Games was over.

"Congratulations, Inby!" simpered Effie Trinket, shaking the boy's hand. She wiped it off conspicuously on the side of her primrose pink pantsuit after relinquishing it. She turned to the crowd of girls tucked together in their pen and smiled.

"And best for last, right? Ladies…"

She reached into the glass ball and pulled out a slip.

"Magdalen Glass," Effie Trinket called, looking at the pen. Silence fell over the square and Cinder was fairly certain that he had died, his heart stopped and turned to stone and fallen out onto the pavement. He couldn't breathe.

That wasn't right.

It wasn't right.

"Magdalen Glass?" asked Effie again, looking down into the pen. "Which of you lovely girls is Magdalen Glass?"

Magdalen took three steps forward. The little Undersee girl attached herself to her mother's leg, face buried in the white lace of her dress.

Magdalen opened her mouth to speak, but no sound came out. Both hands splayed over her stomach, protecting herself, protecting Cinder's baby, like the Games had already begun and the Capitol's cameras and Effie's smile were weapons.

"I'm Magdalen Foquismo," Magdalen whispered, her voice a thin reed stretching over broken air. "I – I was Magdalen Glass. Until two weeks ago."

The smile faltered on Effie's face. She blinked once, twice, slowly as oil pouring, and for some reason looked to Haymitch on the ground. Haymitch Abernathy didn't move. No one spoke. Magdalen swayed where she stood.

There was a deafening rush in Cinder's ears.

"I volunteer!" he cried, broken. "I volunteer, take me instead of her – "

Effie Trinket couldn't hold her sunny smile. "I'm sorry, Volunteers need to be of the same gender." She paused. "I'm sorry."

Cinder spun to the pen of girls. He grabbed the nearest arm. "Volunteer! For cripes' sake, volunteer! Can't you see she's – she can't go!"

Tipple Colliery sniffed. "She ain't one of us anymore. Ask one of the merchant girls. They won't go neither 'cause all of you are chickenshit."

Cinder's face burned. "We're not your enemies. Magdalen – Magdalen isn't the one doing this to you, it's not her or the merchants, it's the Capitol!"

The girl's gray eyes hardened. "Then ask the Capitol to take her place."

Cinder turned to the stage. "She's exempt! Miss Trinket! She's exempt! We're married! She's – she's exempt!"

Effie Trinket blinked that slow blink again. "The Capitol does not err. If she were exempt, her name would not have been included. If we do not have any female volunteers, then Magdalen Glass, you must join us on the stage."

Magdalen took a few more halting steps forward. Behind her, Peeta broke out of the line of merchants and started running for her, but the baker scooped him up and shushed him against his wide, flour-dusted shoulder.

There was a distinct lack of silence as Mayor Undersee read the Treaty of Treason and Magdalen Foquismo, née Glass, shook hands with Inby Haulage. The soft-haired blonde Seam healer tended to Haulage's fallen grandmother with her gray-eyed, solemn daughter staring close by; Peeta Mellark wailed into his father's shoulder, the baker trying earnestly to hush him; Haymitch Abernathy grunted and started to push himself to his feet.

But all Cinder could hear was the wet thump of his pulse in his ears, like wings beating the air.

* * *

><p>"How did this happen?" Cinder demanded, his hands shaking as he stared down at little Effie Trinket. "I thought expectant – expectant mothers were exempt under the bylaws! We've been to the doctors, it's not like it was secret!" He lowered his voice to a dangerous hiss. "We filed the declaration papers for her pregnancy weeks ago."<p>

"But you never applied for a conception license," Effie said sadly, reaching out to lay a hand on Cinder's arm before thinking better of it. "Names are only taken out of the Reaping if they have proper licensure. You needed to file for the marriage license, the Declaration of Marriage, the conception license, and the Declaration of Conception, Cinder… and you didn't."

"Well, she's obviously not fit for the Games, isn't there any way that a substitute name can be drawn?" Cinder asked, despondent.

Effie shook her head. "No one volunteered, Cinder. I'm sorry. There's nothing anyone can do. Except Magdalen. She can win. But that's the only option."

Cinder swallowed and braced his hand against the door, trying to keep gravity from slipping upside-down. "So that's it? She just has to go?"

Effie's eyes welled up and she sniffed. "There's nothing I can do." She paused. "You can go in and see her now. We'll be leaving in one hour."

Cinder blinked, feeling hollow, and turned the corner into Magdalen's room. The couch and chairs were upholstered in gaudy purple velvet, and Magdalen curled up in one small corner of the sofa, pulling at a stray thread in the channelback.

"Pipit," Cinder whispered, curving around her on the sofa. She didn't say a word, just tucked her face into his shoulder.

Cinder pressed his face close to Magdalen's, forehead to forehead and eyes locked on eyes. "Listen… you can win this. I know you can. You're the toughest little bird I've ever seen, and you have the biggest motivation to make it out of there. All right?" He rested his hand against the curve of her stomach, trying not to think _this might be the last time I ever get to touch her, feel the baby_. "Everything I have, I'm turning it in at the resale shop, I'm going to spend everything we've got on Sponsoring you, okay? Anything – everything you need, okay? You'll get it. I'm going to get it for you."

"No," Magdalen said. She laid her palm over Cinder's cheek and he kissed her wrist, feeling the pulse beat under her skin. "Don't. Please. You promised me we would never need tesserae."

Hot tears prickled the corners of Cinder's eyes. "You make sure you come home to me so I can prove I keep my promises." He pulled Magdalen into his lap, her legs falling on either side of his and her arms around his neck and their child tucked up safe between them. "You come home. And you bring _her_home. I know you can do it." He kissed her hard. "My tough little birds."

Effie Trinket knocked softly at the door. "We need to board the train now or we're going to be late."

Cinder's jaw clenched and he wanted to shout and scream and rage; _well, for cripes' sake, it would be the worst thing in the world if you were late to the slaughter, wouldn't it!_but he knew, without having to be told, that things would always be worse if they didn't play by the letter of the Capitol's laws.

"I love you," he said fiercely. "Don't lose yourself in there. Come back to me, little pipit bird."

Magdalen kissed his forehead and led his hand once more over her belly, her gray eyes alight. She smoothed her hand over Cinder's cheek.

"You'll always be my Cinna, okay?" she whispered. "Whatever happens."

Effie and Haymitch shushed Magdalen from the chamber and Cinder Foquismo stayed, sitting heavy on the gaudy furniture, trying to keep the scent of Magdalen's olive oil soap and woodsmoke and wildflowers close, clinging to his clothes a little while longer.

* * *

><p>Peeta was a little sticky and a little floury and smelled like paste and burnt sugar when he crawled into Cinder's lap and tucked his head under the bereft boy's chin. It had already been three weeks since the Reaping had taken Magdalen away, and there had been no word from her in the Capitol, no sign of anything aside from the usual Capitol advertisements with "highlights" from previous Games. There was that girl from Four in the 10TH Games, catching her opponents on hooks; there was Haymitch and that axe flying up the cliff.<p>

"I miss Magdalen," Peeta said sadly, staring at the small videoscreen in the corner. Cinder had never owned one in the loft, but Farll let him borrow the Mellarks', since Peeta shouldn't see the Games anyhow and Cinder couldn't afford to miss a moment, in case it was the last –

"She'll be back," he said decisively, patting Peeta's back. "She'll come back."

"I thought you said you were getting a baby with her," Peeta said, not looking up. "And a baby gets you out of the Reaping."

"Well, that's – that's what we thought, too," Cinder said. "But the Capitol lied about how to get out of the Reaping. It's not having a baby. It's filing paperwork."

"What's filing?"

"Asking for President Snow's permission," Cinder said, his voice hard. "And I thought we had. But I guess he said no."

"Why?"

Peeta's blue eyes were clear and wide and full of worry. He really wanted to understand why they lived in a country that would allow for Magdalen Foquismo to be sent to fight for her life against other children, and where Inby Haulage's last view of his home would be his grandmother's heart stuttering out on the dusty dirt road, and where signatures on a form could mean more than the girl who danced with him at her wedding and who always brought his father squirrels for supper and who was loved so much.

"Because the Capitol is a very bad place, Peeta," Cinder said, exhaustion breaking his voice. "Panem is made of lies."

Peeta's mouth twisted and he nodded very seriously. A long minute of silence, save the almost-muted prattling of Claudius Templesmith on the videoscreen, passed.

"I don't know what that means," Peeta said finally. "What does it mean that Panem's made of lies?"

Cinder sighed heavily and reached for the remote control, Opening Ceremonies about to start.

"It means that everything the Capitol told you is true is really a lie, Peeta. Everything." Peeta nodded and turned to look up at the processional on the videoscreen. "You remember that, Peeta."

Inby Haulage and Magdalen were paraded around the stadium like cattle, stripped to their skin and patchily covered in black powder. Magdalen was stone-faced beneath her miner's headlamp, but Inby had two flesh-colored tracks down his face where embarrassed tears had cut through the coal dust, reducing his chances for sponsors to nothing in one moment of human weakness.

Beside him, Magdalen's eyes were fierce and challenging. Her biceps and triceps were as severely cut as any of the Careers' and the lithe power of her legs was obvious.

But the only thing about her that anyone in Panem would pay any attention to was the softly rounded distention of her stomach, and Cinder had the sinking feeling that her stylists were betting on another District altogether.

Peeta Mellark sat quietly in Cinder's lap, watching the circus of the Opening Ceremonies, taking in the interviews. An orange-skinned boy from District Six scared him and Cinder had to soothe Peeta with toffees. Inby Haulage was shaking too hard to get words out, but Magdalen was poised and smiling and warm and lovely and half the audience cheered themselves hoarse while the other half booed and threw things at the stage.

True to his promise, Cinder didn't spend a dime of his own money on sponsorship. He noticed, quietly, that Barm seemed to be wearing the same outfit each day and was missing his best pair of boots, and he thanked his friend under his breath when Peeta was dropped off for the afternoon.

Barm just nodded, his lips tight, and patted Cinder's back.

He couldn't watch the Cornucopia. He spent the majority of the first day of the Games with his head in the toilet, little Peeta bringing him glasses of water and telling him, over and over, "Magdalen's still alive. She's running through the trees," or "Magdalen's still alive. Inby's not, though, he's really dead," or "Magdalen's still alive. They'd be showing her if she died. There'd be a cannon, right?"

The evening finale of the Games, as always, pitted four seconds' footage of each Tribute's face – setting the tone of their role in the Games, pitting the audience and the Sponsors either for or against the gladiators in the Arena – against the soaring twinkle of the Panem anthem played to whatever tone best fit the evening. Tonight was soft, sweet flutes.

It was disconcerting.

The faces of the dead first – the girl from Five with half her face gone, the boy from Eleven with his black eyes glassy and staring at the dirt.

Inby Haulage, dark curls matted with blood.

Eight dead children in vary stages of dismemberment and panic – a few whole Districts already out of the Games; Three and Nine unlucky this year – and then the living.

The pair from One were shown curled together in their sleeping bag, shoulders naked and writhing and just a slip of nipple. The Capitol did so love when the Careers were of age and uncensored.

The girl from Two was sharpening her knife under the stars, gleaming steel biting white and black against the flickering flames of the Careers' fire.

Beside her, the big Two boy with the dragon tattoo on his face dozed, looking untroubled with a sharp-toothed mace tucked close like a teddy bear.

The tiny boy from Four had his head cradled on his partner's lap as he slept, and Cinder vaguely recalled that they were a brother and sister. Even as peaceful as the boy looked, the girl's eyes were fierce and watchful, trained on the knife in Girl Two's hands.

Out in the forest, the orange boy from District Six was still awake, stalking through the underbrush with his sword brandished like he would be just as happy to attack a tree as a person. Cinder didn't trust the wild twitch in the boy's sallow eyes or the crooked sharpness of his yellow teeth. Everyone knew District Six Tributes weren't supposed to survive the Cornucopia, and he had. If he was lucid enough to make it into the forest, what else could he do?

The cameras panned up the length of a tall, gnarled tree covered in conks of fruited purple fungus – probably poisonous, possibly edible, but none of the Tributes would be silly enough to test it – and there was Magdalen, curled up with her bedroll around her shoulders like a shawl. She had a tiny smile on her face as her fingers lightly chased the tiny kicks across her belly, and that was the one moment in the Hunger Games that Cinder Foquismo cried.

Magdalen was still early enough along that the cameras panned over her vomiting pathetically in the bushes as the lights rose on the Arena come morning.

"Come on, pipit," Cinder murmured, staring at the screens in then square. "Get up."

Magdalen sat back on her heels and wiped her mouth on the heel of her hand. She heard something far-off that didn't transmit over the cameras and jumped silently to her feet, more graceful than most of the Tributes even at their peak, and swung herself up into one of the huge, purple-fruiting trees, climbing high enough to make Cinder's heart clench.

She crouched in the tree, silent and watchful, an arrow perched against the string of her bow, trained at the ground.

The Career pack came rumbling onto the screen, Boy Two and Girl One in the lead, mace and dagger clutched in battle position. Girl Two and Boy One ran backwards at their heels, on the lookout for an ambush, and just behind them, Girl Four held out her arms to help her little brother over a huge fallen log.

Boy Two spit in the leaves at his feet. "That fucking kid," he muttered. "Useless."

"She's good, though," argued his partner at his back. "And they have sponsors."

"We have sponsors," muttered back Boy Two. "I say we trim the fat."

"You gonna do it?" asked Boy One. "She's gonna go ballistic on whoever does."

"Then I take her, too," blustered Boy Two. "And we get a fucking feast in parachutes for dinner."

Boy One raised an eyebrow. "Whatever you say, chief. Can't say I didn't warn you."

The siblings from Four jogged over and Cinder covered his eyes as the girl's face fell into a grief-shocked white hole and her little brother's brain splattered her shirt and arms and face when the mace came whipping around the side of his head.

Before Girl Four could even catch the headless body in its descent, an arrow whizzed down from the trees and slammed Boy Two in the chest, piercing in one side and out the other. He grabbed the shaft of the arrow, looking stunned, and fell back against the leaves.

"Let's get outta here," yelled Boy One, grabbing his partner's sleeve. "Trim the fat."

The pair from One and the lone girl left from Two ran off through the mottled green and eggplant underbrush while the girl from Four cradled the carcass that used to be her little brother.

Magdalen slipped down from the tree and yanked her arrow out of Boy Two's lifeless chest. She turned and Girl Four stared up at her.

"Thanks," Girl Four said thickly. "For – he would have appreciated it." She sniffed. "Why did you do it? Now they know you can shoot."

Magdalen shook her head. One hand reflexively spread over her middle. "You're the only other one in here playing for someone else." She crouched down by the wrecked body and lifted his hand. "What was his name?"

"Atoll," said Girl Four, smoothing what was left of her brother's hair over what was left of his face. "We called him Tully."

Magdalen smiled and set the boy's limp hand in his lap. "That's a good name."

"I promised my mother he would come home," the girl whispered. Overhead, the chugging blades of the hovercraft approached, drowning out their words to the cameras. Everything went out fuzzy for a second as the feed switched to a 6-second delay so their words could be captioned in white along the bottom of the screen.

_Your mother will know how hard you tried_, Magdalen said, straightening the dead boy's collar. _The words of a promise are important, but the intent behind them is what a person's really counting on._

The silver sling dropped down beside Tully's body and Girl Four and Magdalen settled him inside as across the clearing, robotic arms scooped up Boy Two with no care and no circumstance.

The two girls watched as Tully's body swung up towards the sky, swaying on the breeze. Boy Two's sling followed, low and dark.

"I don't wanna have to kill you," Girl Four said, not looking at Magdalen. "And I don't – I don't want to break my promise, but I think you should be the one to go home."

Magdalen pulled her quiver of arrows higher on her back. "I have my own promises to get back to. But I am sorry about your brother. Just… don't let this change how you're playing the game, okay? You were playing it honorably. For someone you loved. And you still are. You're playing for your mother now, right? And for Tully."

Girl Four looked over to Magdalen with tears running down her cheeks but a wry smile on her face. "You know, I don't know how someone as smart as you got knocked up."

Magdalen laughed under her breath. "Neither do I. But I think it's the best thing that's ever happened to me."

The District Four girl snorted. "To each their own." She looked over her shoulder and unsheathed her dagger, already edging away towards the dark of the jungle. "May the odds _evah_be in your fayvah!"

Magdalen's lips twitched and shouldered her bow. "Play well for your brother."

The girl ran off and the cameras split again, an overhead sweeping arc following Girl Four through the jungle, Claudius Templesmith interviewing a Gamemaker about the mutts for this year's Games in a voiceover, and Magdalen's wistful smile as she wiped Tully's blood off her hands and started climbing another tree, ready to wait out the afternoon.

They didn't show Magdalen again until dinnertime. The Career pack massacred Ten sometime between high noon and the first lavender fade of twilight, and Cinder kept one eye on the screen and the other on Peeta, painting in the corner with his little canvas, instructed firmly by Barm _not to look_. Somewhere far off in the forest, a surprise cannon sounded, Boy Eleven dead, and the orange-skinned boy from Six grinned horribly from ear to ear.

The Gamemakers and Templesmith and the District Six mentors were discussing his silent and savage attack and how there hadn't been a Victor from Six in twenty years when the parachute fell.

Barm had just arrived to pick up Peeta, but when Cinder turned, he shook his head.

"That's not from me," he said. "I dunno who."

Magdalen smiled gratefully, snatching the silver out of the sky and holding it close, scanning the ground and nearby treetops for Careers who might have noticed the falling feast. She settled back into her tree, propped the parachute on her belly, and untied the wrapper.

_Fish_. Beautiful sunset-pink, faintly marbled fish as large as a wild turkey leg, still steaming inside the reflective packaging and dusted with little orange eggs and green herbs.

They didn't have fish like that in Twelve. Trout, sure. A few ugly catfish if you knew how to catch them. Crappies, maybe mullets if you were particularly good with a net.

But huge, beautiful fish like that –

"She got a Sponsorship from _Four_," said Barm, sounding dazed. "I didn't even know you could Sponsor someone else's Tribute."

"Maybe it's a trick," Peeta said nervously. "Maybe it's poison."

"Can't send poison in a parachute, Peeta," said Cinder, a low crackling burn warming his ribs as he watched Magdalen's gray eyes take in the unprecedented, rich, once-in-her-lifetime gift. "Only good things."

"But you said everything is a lie," Peeta said, burying his face in the side of Barm's leg.

The burn in Cinder's chest blazed to a roar as Magdalen gobbled up the swordfish steak with her fingers. That night, she had to kill a chimera mutt that slithered up her tree on its snake body, purplish venom coating its lion teeth. Once the thing was dead and Magdalen very much still alive, radiant with the fight and blowing her hair out of her face like she'd done nothing more taxing than take out a skinny Twelve squirrel, Claudius Templesmith announced that the official tally for the day held that they were down to the final eight Tributes.

Cinder would be interviewed in the morning.

* * *

><p>Cinder took a deep breath and focused on keeping his hands still and arms straight at his sides. He would be the face of Magdalen's support base and strength, his words would influence sponsors and former Victors and, maybe, even the way the mentors communicated with their Tributes in the Arena that Magdalen was a force to be reckoned with.<p>

"Cinder, what were your feelings when Magdalen was chosen at the Reaping?" Caesar asked, smiling an open, sympathetic white crease across his face.

Cinder chose his words carefully. "I was very shocked. I had filed what I was told were all of the necessary forms for the Capitol to remove her name from inclusion this year, so you can imagine my dismay at being informed too late that there were extraneous papers that no one had mentioned."

Caesar nodded. "It must have been surprising to Magdalen as well, I would imagine. How do you think she is handling the Arena?"

"She's a strong competitor," Cinder said decisively. "She's strong, she's fast, she's very, very smart… and she has the most at stake. I know Magdalen has what it takes to win."

"If she were to win, would you celebrate that victory by marrying her?"

Cinder felt his brow crease. "We are married. _When_she wins, I suspect we'll be fairly busy getting ready for the baby's arrival, and that would be cause for celebration enough for us and our families and friends."

Caesar grinned at him again, a clown put upon by the Capitol to poke at District dwellers like documentary subjects. "What is a celebration like here in District Twelve? Is is like the carnivals we see every year on the Victory Tour?"

Cinder shrugged. "It's different for everyone, same as anywhere else, I'd guess. Neither Magdalen nor I are all that flashy, so we'll probably celebrate the baby with a small naming ceremony. Our best friend is the son of the bakery owner, so I'd guess we'd have a cake."

"Ah, yes, I understand that you're one of the wealthier citizens of District Twelve," Caesar said. "And that Magdalen's family are some of the poorest. What role did that play in your relationship?"

"None." Cinder frowned. "We went to school together and both excelled in mathematics and the arts. She's beautiful. She's funny. And like I said, she's wickedly smart. That's all that mattered to me when I fell in love with her."

Caesar cupped his hands to his jaw. "Young love! That is something we see so rarely in the Hunger Games, but of course, your situation _is_very unusual. Now, confidentially, what do you think you'll do if she doesn't win?"

Cinder blinked twice. "I can't think about that. Everything that matters to me in the world is in the Arena right now. I have to think she's going to come home, and I believe she will."

"Well," Caesar Flickerman said, "Even if she doesn't make it, at least you had a few months of happiness together. That's better than nothing at all, isn't it?"

Cinder looked up with blazing eyes. "Yeah. Maybe I'd think so too if it weren't for the baby."

When his interview aired the next evening – Cinder's face superimposed on an older, cleaner District Twelve scene with Panem flags flying proud behind him; _Cinder Foquismo, Father of Tribute's Fetus_in square white letters – the face of Magdalen's support had been edited to broadcast to all of Panem:

"I know Magdalen has what it takes to win, if it weren't for the baby."

* * *

><p>Barm handily deposited Peeta through the door of the tailor's shop and Peeta, as he was pretending not to have any bones to make it harder for Barm to carry him, slid to the floor with a thump.<p>

"Hey, Peeta," Cinder said cautiously, "What's wrong?"

Peeta crossed his arms and turned his head resolutely to the wall.

Cinder looked over at Barm. Barm looked apologetic – but only just – and shook his head, backing out the door.

"Peeta?" Cinder asked, walking over and crouching down beside the little boy, "What's going on?"

Peeta huffed dramatically, re-crossing his arms and shaking his head until his blond hair was a riot of pale sticks around his red face.

"Did I do something?" Cinder asked, putting his hand on Peeta's back. "I can't deal with you being angry at me right now, okay, Peeta? It's not funny. Things aren't good right now."

Peeta's face screwed up and he glared at Cinder with all of the fury a five-year-old brewing a monster tantrum could manage. "You said Magdalen is going to lose."

Cinder's face fell further and he sank back onto his haunches on the floor.

"No, I didn't," he said, sounding exhausted. "I said – it doesn't matter what I said, but I didn't say that."

"I saw it, dammit," Peeta growled, and Cinder didn't even bother admonishing him. He _was_damned, and he'd damned Magdalen and the baby on his way down to hell. "You said she could win if it weren't for the baby."

"Peeta," Cinder sighed around the lump in his throat, "What did I tell you always to remember? What did I tell you about Panem?"

Peeta just scowled.

"It's built on lies, Peeta," Cinder said. "I did not say that Magdalen would lose because of the baby. But they can make it look like you said or did whatever they want."

"Why do they want Magdalen to lose, then?" Peeta asked. His brow smoothed out and his blue eyes flickered open again in their usual Mellark bleeding-heart softness as he looked at the etched lines of utter despair on Cinder's face. Peeta clambered into Cinder's lap again, patting Cinder's arm encouragingly.

"Because you were right after all, Peeta," Cinder said, watching the dull hum of tense silence beaming onto his videoscreen from the Capitol. "They don't give babies to kids. And you're a kid if you're in the Reaping."

Peeta nodded. "I did warn you that."

Cinder coughed a single wry laugh. "That you did, Peeta. You did warn me."

Peeta was quiet for a long time, watching Girl Four stalk Boy Six through the underbrush far away.

"Are we gonna paint today?" he asked finally.

"You can paint. I don't want to," Cinder said.

Peeta frowned. "No. You gotta. It'll make you feel better. Whenever I… run into the door, I paint how I feel about it, and then I feel better. You can do that, too."

Cinder smiled for what felt like the first time in five and a half weeks, and smoothed an affectionate hand through Peeta's soft blond curls – pulling free a mysterious clump of paste, which Peeta deftly explained away with a low scowl and a 'Gale' – before going over to his easel. He painted Magdalen and a little dark-haired baby with green eyes playing in the surf of District Four, Tully and his sister somewhere off in the distance, floating on the waves.

Peeta ended up with a smear of green across his forehead as the sun set outside with a bitter red harshness coming off the smog of the mines.

"I don't think Barm's coming," Peeta said nervously when the sky outside had burned through to a crystal-clear night blue. "My mother probably told him he had to work more harder today. She was really mad this morning 'cause his boots are missing and they cost a lot of money."

Cinder didn't say that he knew where those boots had gone. Magdalen was the only Tribute with a bedroll.

"I'll walk you home, Peeta," Cinder said, standing and stretching and setting his painting along the windowsill to dry. "It's cold tonight. Winter's coming, I think. Get your coat."

"I don't have a coat," Peeta shrugged, shaking his head. "I got too big for it."

"I'll make you one," Cinder promised, putting his hand on the back of Peeta's head to lead him out the door. Peeta kicked a little white stone back and forth between his feet as they headed into the center of the Merchant quarters, near the square where Twelve branched out from the merchant quarter to the mines in the east, the Seam to the west, and the empty expanse towards Eleven in the south.

The huge videoscreen outside the Justice Building was full of Magdalen's ashen face.

"_Cinna_," whimpered Peeta, tugging on his hand and pointing.

Cinder felt time stretch around him like coils, pulling out taut and stopping, suspended, crystallized, as the District Six boy kicked out and Magdalen stumbled back, letting the arrow fly.

His foot connected with her belly and Magdalen doubled over. Her arrow bit into the boy's shoulder and he jerked back, gnashing his yellow teeth, before kicking out again, connecting over and over as Magdalen crumpled and cried out, arms and bent legs trying to protect the twenty-fifth Tribute.

And then the dark, velvety-green bushes rustled and the big girl from District Four streaked out, sword drawn and pointed at the throat of the rampaging boy. Magdalen's arrow still stuck out of his shoulder.

"Leave her alone," growled the District Four girl. "Fight like a real man if you're gonna fight at all."

The orange-skinned, yellow-toothed boy bared his fangs and pulled a long, notched knife out of his boot. Then he turned tail like the coward he was, and he ran away into the forest, loud and crashing through the trees.

The girl from Four looked down at Magdalen. "I hope you're okay," she said softly. "Even if it does mean we have to kill each other later."

And then she took off, leaving Magdalen alone in the soft moss under the darkening sky, caught between blue and violet and gray and bright with white slices of stars.

Cinder didn't know how, but his fingers had found the shape of Magdalen's face on the huge screen and he traced over her cheek.

"Come on, pipit," he whispered. "Get up."

The cameras in the capitol broke into a split-screen, with the Four girl chasing the Six boy across the jungle on one side, trailing them close like the audience was a part of the chase, and the other pulling back high and filming Magdalen from overhead, a tiny dark dot on the moon-soaked green carpet of the jungle floor.

Cinna felt the stretch of time break and fly forward at breakneck speed when he realized, as Magdalen did in front of him, thousands of miles away, that the dark spot was spreading.

Magdalen whimpered – just once, just softly – as she rolled onto her back and pushed herself up to sit. Her blue uniform pants were soaked in blood, and the spongy moss beneath her was black.

The light went out in her eyes.

"No," Cinder whispered, his hand pressed to the screen, "No, no, no, get up. Get up, pipit, it's – it'll be okay, you've got to get up."

Magdalen collapsed onto her back in the soft moss, the spade-shaped leaves of the trees casting dark geometric shadows over her face in the starlight. She pressed her hands over the mound of her belly, fingers soft and spreading, just touching and feeling as the pool of black beneath her on the moss spread.

"It's okay, pipit," Cinna murmured, his heart in his throat, "Just get up and come home, we can make another, we can make so many, just come home, just come home to me."

Magdalen drew in a shaky breath as she looked up at the pricks of starlight that reflected back in her glassy gray eyes. "You never even got to feel her kick," she whispered, mouth barely moving.

Cinder choked on nothing and closed his eyes, slamming his knuckles against the frame of the screen. "Get up!"

Magdalen smiled sadly and closed her eyes, her arms wrapped around herself like a hug. "We'll never need tesserae. You were right."

"Get up!" Cinder roared, hitting the side of the screen again as time rushed around him like a roaring of color and black in his ears, the square too full of watchful, pitying eyes and no one _doing_anything.

Cinder collapsed in front of the screen, the rubbed-raw heels of his hands pressed to his temples. He wanted to shut his eyes, to drown it out, he did not want – could not bear – to watch this, but he knew, he knew, that it was the only thing he could still do for Magdalen.

She didn't move. She didn't cry, or scream, or writhe.

All she did was bleed.

Cinder felt hollow when the cannon blasted, so far away, and Magdalen's face shone across the stars in the Arena.

President Snow's face filled the hundred screens around the square and Cinder felt like he was _everywhere_, pressing up against all of his organs and making everything reek of blood and roses.

"Well," he said imperiously as Claudius Templesmith simpered in another quadrant of the split-screen, the girl from Four chased the boy from Six through the jungle in a third, and Magdalen bled out over and over and over and over in the last, "Of course there will be those who pity Magdalen Glass and her unborn child. There will be those who may be persuaded to think she should have been exempt from these Hunger Games. But those people should bear in mind: these Hunger Games are the consequences of bad acts.

"Magdalen Glass acted against the laws of the Capitol when she conceived without a license. She continued her abysmal amorality by refusing to wed under Capitol sanction, claiming the barbaric District Twelve traditions enacted by her peers constituted binding marriage. They do not. Magdalen Glass was misled by the ineptitude of the Districts and for that continued irresponsibility and lack of respect for the laws of the Capitol, Magdalen Glass and her bastard child paid an appropriate price.

"Do not forget the purpose of these Hunger Games. Those who commit crimes against the Capitol will serve their penance."

The dusty square of District Twelve thundered with silence. Cinder felt the gap of people around him widening, opening him up to the wolves' mouths up on the screens from the Capitol, grinning white foaming maws discussing the end of his world as though it were the weather.

Little Peeta Mellark laid his hand on Cinder's shoulder.

* * *

><p>The tailor shop was closed.<p>

* * *

><p>Winter came, and Barmbrack Mellark had no boots. His littlest brother made do without a coat.<p>

Two coffins returned to District Four. Three wound their way across Panem to Twelve and were unloaded into the town square under a blinding snowfall. They were buried a day later in coal-hard ground full of white Capitol coffins in neat, small rows.

* * *

><p>Icy water hit Cinder's face like shards of rock. He jerked and spluttered. The back of his head hit the brick wall of the Hob and he saw stars, cursing, before letting his eyes drift shut again. He could smell the sticky vomit stink that had become omnipresent over the last two months.<p>

"Get up," snarled Haymitch Abernathy, rearing the bucket to douse Cinder again. "Cripes' sake, Cinder, you're embarrassing yourself and you're embarrassing your wife and kid."

Cinder mopped his sopping hair out of his eyes. "What the hell would you know about it?"

Haymitch's jaw ticked. "You really think I live up in that infernal mansion by myself because I want to? The world isn't all about _your_pain, sweetheart."

Cinder squinted up at the lopsided silhouette. "Yeah, last I checked, you _came home_."

Haymitch threw the rest of the water at Cinder's face. "You think that's better?" He shook his head. "When you're ready to pull your fat merchy head out of your ass, you should come by my dee-luxe mansion on the hill. Five o'clock today sounds like a good time for you to get over yourself."

"Fuck off, Haymitch," Cinder groaned, leaning back against the wall again.

"She never gave up like this," Haymitch scoffed, taking up his bucket and his bottles and turning to walk away. "She would have set herself on fire to get back to you. Frankly… I don't see the appeal."

Cinder didn't answer. He turned and looked out across the snowscape at the divide of Twelve, from the Hob up into the square and across into merchant quarters. School was letting out, a burst of little blond kids and dark Seam kids fanning out away from each other. Tate, the undertaker's son, in a thick gray wool coat, seemed to be forcing Peeta to eat a rock.

Cinder sighed and closed his eyes. He needed to go home and change his clothes and bathe.

The stench was starting to get to him.

Come five o'clock, the low winter sky was already a woolly sort of blue-gray-green and Cinder Foquismo made his first-ever trek up to the Victor's Village. There were ten houses, the District minimum, and nine stood empty. Six had never been filled. The tenth had a huge, broken pen for geese in the side-yard, empty in all this cold.

Cinder knocked on the peeling door.

Haymitch swung it open, creaking on its hinges. "Oh, Beetee, come on in."

Cinder heard the grinding of something like screws in the wall. His head still hovered in that half-drunken dreamspace where everything hurt and nothing made sense and his first thought was _goose attack_ and his second was _the house is falling down_.

"Who's Beetee?" he asked instead, stepping over the threshold. The house was disgusting, even by Cinder's standards of late. Haymitch Abernathy turned six locks down the length of the door.

"Half an hour of freedom, that's who Beetee is," Haymitch snuffed. "And that's not a lot of time, so sit down and listen, sweetheart. This isn't about you."

There was a soft commotion and Marjorae Undersee, tiny little Madge trailing with her hands fisted in her mother's skirt, bustled into Haymitch Abernathy's rathole of a living room, tea tray in hand.

"Hello, Cinder," she said kindly, handing him a steaming mug of tea. She disentangled Madge from her skirts and settled her down in a clear spot on the floor. Madge peered up at Cinder timidly from under her froth of white-blonde curls and scooted over to clasp onto his knee.

"I am so sorry about Magdalen and the baby," Marjorae said, smoothing her palm over his face. "Did you already have a name for him?"

Cinder looked down. "Brattice."

"That's a terrible name for a boy," grunted Haymitch, scowling at his tea. "Now, look, we've got twenty-eight minutes. Cinder, what wouldn't you do to bring Magdalen back?"

Cinder's green eyes blazed. "There is absolutely nothing I wouldn't do."

"Well, you can't bring her back. But you could stop someone else from losing their Magdalen." Haymitch leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "How would you feel about becoming a spy?"

Cinder looked from Haymitch, the town drunk, to Marjorae Undersee, the delicate wife of the District mayor. "What are you talking about?"

"When I was sixteen," Marjorae began, petting Madge's hair lovingly, "My twin sister, Maysilee, was Reaped into the Quarter Quell."

"With him," Cinder clarified, nodding towards Haymitch.

"With me," Haymitch said. "I couldn't save her. I tried."

"Yeah, your track record with saving girls from Twelve isn't great," Cinder said. Haymitch Abernathy's face darkened and he pulled a fist, but Marjorae Undersee gently still him with a hand on his elbow.

"He tried," Marjorae said. "He always tries. But Maysilee died. Haymitch won by exposing a flaw in the Gamemakers' design – "

"That axe," Cinder said.

"Right," Marjorae said. "The axe. Cinder, two weeks later…" she trailed off, looking over to Haymitch.

"Two weeks later, my whole family and my Magdalen were dead," Haymitch all but growled. "Her name was Scarlet. I had a ring in my pocket when they had me identify her body. There wasn't really enough left of her to be sure, though."

Cinder looked at his hands and took a long drag of hot tea. "I didn't know."

"Never told you." Haymitch shrugged.

Marjorae laid a hand over Haymitch's scarred wrist and a hand over Cinder's pale hand. "Cinder… it isn't enough to try to bring home one survivor a year. We need to stop the Hunger Games altogether. And you can be a huge asset, if you're interested."

"Think about it, sweetheart," Haymitch said, scratching his chin. "Little Brattice would have been in the Reaping ball for the next Quarter Quell. You really wanna live in a world like that? You want to live in a world where Peeta Mellark could get sent to die just because his mother's a selfish bitch?"

Cinder looked down at Madge Undersee's wide blue eyes, staring up at him from his knee. "What do you need me for?"

"You're young, you're not a Victor, and you can design clothes," Haymitch said, leaning back. "How would you feel about styling for the Games?"

Cinder's jaw dropped. "Are you kidding me? Firstly, why the criminy would I want to have _anything_to do with – Secondly, there's no way they're going to just let me migrate to the Capitol. No one from Twelve ever gets a Priority rating, it's not gonna happen."

"We can get you to the Capitol with somewhere to live and a spot in the design school in a month, for the new semester," Haymitch said dryly.

Cinder swallowed. "What would you want me to do? Bomb the design school? Kill the Gamemakers?"

Haymitch laughed uproariously, slapping his knee. Madge Undersee pressed her face into the side of Cinder's knee and Marjorae looked reproachful.

"Ah, sweetheart, you don't have the face for killing," Haymitch snorted, wiping his eyes. "No, no, no… what we want you to do is design for the Games. Do a helluva job. Get promoted. Schmooze. If you can get invited to a few of Snow's parties, all the better. Get your own District. Not a Career. Twelve. Eleven. Five. Eight."

"And then what?"

Marjorae's eyes gleamed. "Hopefully by then… all we'll need is a spark."

"I don't know what you think a costume can really do," Cinder said. Then he thought of the immediate way Inby's tear-streaks painted him as weak, how Magdalen's Capitol costume – or lack of one – was just fodder for Snow to push his campaign against unlicensed conception. He nodded slowly. "No… I'll do it. How do I get out of Twelve?"

"Cinder," Marjorae said gently, plucking Madge from the floor and settling her on her lap, "Once you leave, you can never come back. You can't speak to anyone from the District. Don't even show any interest in any news from Twelve until we give you a signal. Are you really and truly willing to give everyone up?"

Barm's easy smile and his mother's intricate quilt and Peeta's sincere, questioning eyes ran through Cinder's mind, but they were chased down and drowned out by Magdalen's smile, Magdalen's laugh, the weight of Magdalen's hair in his hands, the softness of her skin, the miraculous little kicks he never got to feel.

"Yes," Cinder said softly. "What's the signal?"

Haymitch shook his head. "First things first. You're gonna be in the Capitol for at least a decade before they promote you up to head designer. Let's face it, you're a rube from Twelve and you're not anywhere near their level yet. But you will be." He almost smiled. "You're not all bad at designing. I saw Magdalen's bird wedding gown. It was… a thing."

Cinder's brow furrowed. "Thanks?"

"You know who Plutarch Heavensbee is?" asked Haymitch.

Cinder nodded. "Isn't he that new Gamemaker? He commissioned the chimerae or something, didn't he?"

Marjorae nodded. "He's from District Thirteen."

There was a long pause.

"Yeah, there's a Thirteen," Haymitch said, turning his cup over and looking disappointed that there was no more tea. "Plutarch, and two of the Victors from Three are forging your papers. Plutarch's got a niece in the Capitol who's sympathetic to the cause. You're gonna stay with her."

"I'm married," Cinder said softly, knee-jerk and stinging.

"You don't have to do her," Haymitch snorted. Marjorae looked disapproving. "She's your design partner, your roommate, your assistant, whatever cover works best. If you actually get along, great. If not, fake it. Her name's Portia and she's got a room for you and you're going to take it."

"What's the 'cause'?" Cinder asked, his throat dry. "That she's sympathetic to?"

Marjorae's sweet face hardened. "Taking down the Capitol."

"Uniting the Districts," said Haymitch, his dark eyes sliding a look her way. "That's what has to happen first.

"And that," he said, "Is where you can help. I can't talk to you once you're in the Capitol, but there are a few Victors who mentor or live out there that Plutarch's going to get you in touch with. Beetee, Wiress, and Wattson from Three are essential. Mags from Four – that's where Plutarch's going to try to get you and Portia placed for your apprenticeships, Four – and Chaff from Eleven. _If Plutarch doesn't tell you someone's safe to talk to, then you cannot talk to them about the cause_."

Cinder nodded tersely. Marjorae poured fresh, hot tea into his mug, touching it with warmth, and Haymitch downed a second cup with the same spiteful fervor as he had the first.

"Why me?" Cinder asked finally, looking up. "There are lots of young people who can design, probably better than I can. And Plutarch's niece – Portia? – why not just use her?"

"What's the cause?" asked Haymitch roughly.

"Uniting the Districts," repeated Cinder.

Marjorae looked up with a sad, sweet smile and ran her hand through her daughter's cloud of pale hair. "That's what Magdalen did… you'd be continuing her legacy. I thought it might be something you would appreciate more than most."

Cinder looked into the depths of his tea, murky with the remnants of black leaves. "I'll do it." He met Haymitch's eyes. "I'll go to the Capitol."

Haymitch Abernathy nodded. His gray Seam eyes shone with something like respect. "You're the right man for it, Cinder Foquismo. I'll let Plutarch and Mags know you're in. You've got one month to figure out the tailor shop, kid. Take care of your mom."

Cinder swallowed. "The kids from District Four – their family…"

"Mags is watching out for them," Marjorae said gently.

"Don't sugarcoat it, Jorie," snorted Haymitch. He looked to Cinder with his jaw set. "There was a so-called accident out at sea the day after they sent that fish to Magdalen. The parents are dead, the Tributes' brother was sent to live with an aunt and uncle somewhere else in the District. He's turning thirteen… if he's not Reaped this year, and he might not be 'cause it'd look suspicious, my guess is he'll go when he's fourteen. _If_you can pull it off at the design school, you might be styling him."

"If he's turning thirteen, then that boy Tribute was – "

"Twins," said Marjorae, her voice tight and high. She smoothed her hands compulsively through Madge's hair again. Her eyes were wet and bright. "They seem to like doing that."

Cinder looked over to her and gently laid his hand over hers. "I'm sorry."

Marjorae shook her head and smiled. "It was a long time ago. Now, the signal – Madge," she turned to look down at her tiny daughter, "Do you want to give it to Cinder now?"

Madge nodded and Marjorae kissed her head. She unfastened a little gold badge from the front of Madge's dress and Madge took it in her chubby fingers.

She handed it solemnly to Cinder. "This is a mockingjay. My momma has one and my Aunt Mayzee had one. They're birds that tricked the Capitol."

_Just like Magdalen._

"Will you remember what you're looking for?" Marjorae asked urgently as the screws began to turn in the walls again and Haymitch mimed wildly, _wrap it up_.

"Absolutely," Cinder said firmly, folding the badge into the palm of his hand and tucking it into his pocket. He stood to go and Marjorae followed, kissing his cheek.

Haymitch Abernathy followed him to the front door. Cinder stuck his hand out to take and Haymitch didn't take it.

But he did lean in, reeking of white liquor, and mutter, "She could've won. I hope you know that." He pulled back. "Now, get outta my house."

Cinder kept his hand clutched around the badge as he walked down the long road between the Victor's Village and the merchant quarters. The back of his mind sang, _this could have been where you lived. You and Magdalen and the baby._He kept right on walking past the tailor shop and turned at the fork in the road, following the warm scent of bread up to the Mellark bakery.

"Oh," said Mahra Mellark once the door had opened. "It's you. I thought it might be a paying customer."

"Lovely to see you, too, Mrs. Mellark," said Cinder with a wry twist of his lips.

Mahra sniffed. "Barm!" she yelled over her shoulder. "It's your boyfriend."

"Actually, I'm here to see Peeta," Cinder said shortly.

"Never mind," Mahra yelled over her shoulder again. "Peeta! Get down here!"

There was a commotion above and then Peeta came stomping down the stairs. His sleeves were too short and his hems were too short and he had a brilliantly violet shiner ringing one eye.

"Cinna!" he cried in some surprise when he reached the landing, "What are you doing here?" He glanced up nervously to where Cinder was glaring at Mahra and Mahra stared coolly back, one eyebrow arched.

Cinder crouched down to look Peeta in the eyes. "Well, I came by to see if you wanted to come over tomorrow and paint. I've still got your canvas set up, if you'd like. And… it looks like you still need a coat?"

Peeta beamed. "I'll come tomorrow after school. I can walk there by myself now."

"And who's going to ice the cookies if you go fiddle away?" asked Mahra sharply, gripping Peeta's shoulder.

Cinder looked up at her darkly. "You can ice cookies beautifully. How about you?" He smiled at Peeta. "I'll come by the school and get you at the end of the day, okay?"

Peeta smiled and bounced on his heels. "Okay!"

Mahra squeezed his shoulder. "Set the table, Peeta."

Peeta nodded quickly, but Cinder grabbed his arm.

"Hey, Peeta… looks like your eye's pretty bad there. Do you need me to take care of the doors? I can probably get a Peacekeeper to fix the hinges if you want."

He raised his eyebrow.

Peeta shuffled his feet nervously and looked from Cinder to his mother and back again. "I don't – know. I'm trying to be less clumsy like you said." He glanced at Mahra again. "I'm gonna set the table."

Peeta ran off and Mahra glared at Cinder. "I don't appreciate threats."

"I don't appreciate Peeta being bruised up worse every time I see him. He's a good kid, Mrs. Mellark. And you're lucky to have him," Cinder's voice cracked once and he coughed. "You're lucky to have him."

She looked unimpressed. "Next time you want to criticize my parenting, make sure you're actually licensed to be a parent, Cinder. And maybe choose someone who wasn't just trying to get rich quick and get out of the Reaping. Might work out a little better for you."

She shut the door in his face.

When Cinder picked Peeta up at the school the next afternoon, the little boy wrapped his hand around Cinder's fingers and galloped happily every few steps along the road, chattering about Katniss Everdeen and how he could write his name now and write K for Katniss and how he was the best of his brothers at icing flowers, because he took painting classes and Lavash and Barm never did and he'd really missed Cinder. And he really missed Magdalen.

Cinder smiled and patted Peeta's head.

For the next four long weeks, Cinder Foquismo gathered Peeta at the end of school each day and Peeta chattered happily as he painted – Cinder teaching him slowly, day by day, about shading and proportion and scale and chiaroscuro and color theory – and Cinder sat in the corner, stitching Peeta a coat several winters too big. He used thick, woven wool in a nice sort of charcoal gray, a color that wouldn't catch the eye of thieves in the cubbies at school on first blush at least, and lined it with heavy rabbit fur. He trimmed the inside of the cuffs with clean, smooth white linen. Nice things were hard to come by in District Twelve, and this might be the only beautiful thing Peeta ever owned.

It was the least he could do.

On the night before he would be leaving, the sole passenger from this far East to be getting a seat on one of the tessera trains on its way back to the Capitol, Cinder packaged all of his paints and boxed them up for Peeta to take home.

"Don't you want them anymore?" Peeta asked in astonishment, his blue eyes round and shining. "You're so good at painting and paints cost so much money."

"It's okay," Cinder said, smiling. "You're good at painting, too, Peeta. I hope you keep it up."

"Of course I will," Peeta said earnestly. "I like coming here and painting with you."

Cinder crouched down to meet the line of Peeta's eyes. "Peeta… you're not going to see me anymore. I won't be here tomorrow. Or the next day, or the next. I'm… going away."

Peeta frowned. "Like Magdalen?" His eyes welled with tears.

"No." Cinder made a sound not quite a laugh and not quite a soft sob. "No, Peeta, not like Magdalen. I'm just... I'm going to live somewhere else, okay? And we won't see each other anymore."

Peeta's eyes were wet. "For how long?"

Cinder patted Peeta's hair consolingly. "Not ever, Peeta. You're never going to see me again, okay? And – and if you _do_," he said, because in Panem, there was always the chance. Peeta might get Reaped some day, and Cinder might have to smile and style him for his death, "And if you do see me, ever, ever again… you can't talk to me. You have to pretend you don't know me, okay?"

Peeta's face twisted into a little mask of grief. "I thought you and me and Magdalen were friends, and she told me that I could be big brothers with the baby, and then you said she could be out of a Reaping, and now she's gone and there's no baby and you're leaving, too." Peeta looked up so sadly that Cinder had to blink against the prickling in his own eyes. "Why does everybody leave me?"

Cinder swallowed and folded the beautiful new coat around Peeta's shoulders. It was long enough that it would fit him for at least three winters, unless he grew quickly, and there were hidden seams inside to be let out for another year or two after that.

"Because the Capitol is a bad place, Peeta," he said softly. "And it takes good people away. But someday… maybe it doesn't have to be like that, okay? And District Twelve can be a good place. There are still people who love you here."

Peeta looked down at his feet.

Cinder swallowed again and went over to Peeta's little canvas, finally taking the completed painting down from his little easel and wrapping it carefully in paper so Peeta could carry it home. It was a lovely little childhood painting, simple and fanciful and bright: Katniss Everdeen with her dark Seam braids and a vermilion red dress, standing in a circle of sunlight like fire, surrounded by black-and-white birds.

"Don't forget your painting, Peeta," Cinder said kindly, tying it off with twine. "It's a good thing Barm's coming by to help you carry all of this home, huh?"

Peeta didn't say a word. Just looked at his feet.

When Barm arrived to walk Peeta home, he shook Cinder's hand solemnly.

"I'll take better care of Peeta," he promised lowly. "With – you know. My mother."

Cinder nodded. "Take care of yourself, too."

Barm smiled, easy as always. He clapped Cinder's shoulder and pulled him in for a hug. "I always do."

He picked up the palette box and Peeta's paper-wrapped painting and waited outside the door.

Cinder turned to Peeta and looked down at him gently. "I'm really going to miss you, Peeta."

"I'm very mad at you."

Peeta's voice was tiny and broken and lacked any form of malice. He sounded like a five-year-old boy who had lost his best friend. Cinder looked back and Peeta's lip poked out in a pout, huge blue eyes dry and serious as he stared up at him from beneath his mussed blond curls.

"I know," Cinder said, nodding. "I am, too."

Peeta's scowl broke and he rushed forward, throwing his arms around Cinder's waist.

Cinder smiled sadly and patted Peeta's back. "Be happy, Peeta. Just grow up happy, okay? And take better care of Katniss than I did of Magdalen."

* * *

><p>Fourteen months later, President Snow smiled, satisfied, as he toured the workshop of the design school. Beside him, Seneca Crane looked disinterested, and behind him, Plutarch Heavensbee barely lifted his head from his com. But Snow liked the design school. So much spectacle, so much hard work. It was the most visible glorification the Capitol had.<p>

Everyone wanted to look Capitol.

He stopped by a particularly striking design; peacock feathers and draping long tails of silk and velvet, shimmering with bits of glass like frost on a rooftop.

"And whose is this?" he asked indulgently, looking to the group of students along the wall.

"Ours, sir," said a petite, pretty girl with long jet black hair, cut in a sharp angle across her face. She smiled at Plutarch. "Hello, Uncle. It's so nice to see you."

Plutarch looked up from his com at last. "Portia! What a surprise. Is this really yours?" He reached out and lifted one of the draping sleeves. "Very nice work."

"Thank you," Portia said, grinning. "It was a truly collaborative effort. I prefer the design architecture to the actual piecework, really."

"So who actually made the garment?" Snow asked, looking down the row. "Good work deserves just rewards, of course."

The slender, good-looking boy beside Portia stepped forward, his head inclined respectfully. He had short, brown hair and a clean sort of look about him, very scrubbed and healthy. "I did, sir."

"You have a bright future," Snow said pleasantly. "How would you feel about working with us one day?"

"It would be an honor to play a role in the future of the Hunger Games," said the boy softly. His voice had a curious timbre – almost a drawl to his words.

President Snow stepped closer and narrowed his eyes. "What's your name?"

The boy looked up. He had finely chiseled cheekbones and pale skin, unadorned with tattoos or implants. His green eyes, daintily touched with gold liner, were mild.

Cinder Foquismo looked up at President Snow with a calm, polite smile. "Cinna, sir. Just 'Cinna.'"


	5. District Seven: The Moral in the Story

**Author**: **aimmyarrowshigh**  
><strong>Fandom<strong>: _The Hunger Games_, Suzanne Collins  
><strong>Story Title<strong>: "Five Places Cinna Came From"  
><strong>Summary<strong>: _Cinna did not come from the Capitol. Five paths he took out of the Districts, and why he set a nation on fire._  
><strong>CharacterRelationships**: (Specific to each section; listed on those pages.) OVERALL - Cinna/Finnick, Finnick/Annie, Katniss/Peeta. Johanna. Haymitch. Beetee. Mags. President Snow.  
><strong>Rating<strong>: M  
><strong>Warnings<strong>: There are very separate, very specific trigger warnings on each District's story, so please read those if you have concerns.  
><strong>Wordcount<strong>: (total) 86,000  
><strong>Disclaimer<strong>: I only own the original characters and concepts. All settings and proprietary language are owned by the author of the work from which this is derived.  
><strong>Notes<strong>: Originally written for **panemetfabulae** for **sihaya09**. She wanted "Finnick POV pre-canon, AUs where different people died in/survived Mockingjay, or Johanna POV on how she won her games," so here are four pre-canon Finnicks and a How Johanna Won Her Games. :) I really hope you enjoy it! I would never have managed to finish this without **poppypickle**, **badguys**, **electrumqueen**, **puella_nerdii**, **glycerineclown**, **lovepollution**, **skellerbvvt**, and **rurone**.

* * *

><p><strong>Author<strong>: **aimmyarrowshigh**  
><strong>Fandom<strong>: _The Hunger Games_, Suzanne Collins  
><strong>Story Title<strong>: "Five Places Cinna Came From: District Seven (The Moral of the Story)"  
><strong>CharacterRelationships**: Cinna, Finnick, Mags, Peeta, Katniss, Haymitch, Johanna, President Snow, Beetee. Cinna/Finnick, Finnick/Annie, Katniss/Peeta, Finnick/others.  
><strong>Rating<strong>: M  
><strong>Warnings<strong>: Spoilers for all three books (although as long as you know what Finnick does for a living and who Annie is, you're probably okay on _Mockingjay_). Violence, forced sexual slavery, sexual/physical/emotional abuse, bad language, references to canon character death, hard drug use, underage sexual contact, familial death. All of the usual feel-good content of Collins' _Hunger Games_ world!  
><strong>Major trigger warnings:<strong> Sexual abuse, violence, depictions of drug use.  
><strong>Wordcount<strong>: 86,000  
><strong>Disclaimer<strong>: I only own the original characters and concepts. All settings and proprietary language are owned by the author of the work from which this is derived.

**Five Places Cinna Came From  
><em>District Seven: The Moral of the Story<em>**

**005. District Seven**  
><em>Once upon a time, there was a little hamlet tucked along the side of a great woods. It was a happy place, full of mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters, and they were all woodcutters.<em>

All except one boy.

"Well, well, well." Finnick Odair's sweet-honey District Four twang dripped from his words like sap from a maple. He leaned up against Cinna and the younger boy's skin was burning hot with rapturol and candycaine; Cinna could feel it through his starched black shirt, radiating from Finnick's smooth chest. "What's a nice District boy like you doin' in a place like this?"

"Not tonight, Finnick," Cinna sighed.

"Yes… tonight," Finnick said pointedly, wrapping his arms around Cinna's ribs and rubbing the side of his face on Cinna's arm. Cinna finally looked down at him and Finnick's pupils were huge. Finnick pouted and slithered up against him. "Please, Cinna… please…"

As if anyone could deny Finnick Odair.

Cinna bit his lip. Finnick slid up against him again, hard against his hip – he was always hard; how was Finnick Odair _always_hard?

"Okay," Cinna said, smiling down at the beatific boy still nuzzling his shoulder. Finnick grinned up at him with those wet bow lips and huge black pupils and wild rumple of bronze hair, looking every inch like a very bad angel. He grabbed Cinna's hand and led him back to the private rooms; Finnick had one of his own, of course, but the rest rotated out on the hour.

Sometimes, Cinna wondered exactly what a nice District boy like him was doing in a place like this.

But then Finnick Odair, in those tight, shining pants like fish scales, threw the lock on the scalloped black door and the red Occupied light clicked on outside, and he turned to face Cinna with that _smile_again, that heartbreaking smile that set Cinna's heart all a-stutter, and he always remembered.

"I was hopin' you'd be here tonight," Finnick said, looking at Cinna steadily from under his crazy-long eyelashes that sometimes, when Cinna turned just the right way, fluttered against his cheekbones like wings. "I missed you the last couple days."

"Yeah," Cinna said, scrubbing a hand through his hair, "I just – you know. Places to go. People to see."

Finnick's lips quirked. "Someone special?"

Cinna looked away. "No. I mean, you know me, I'm not – what the Capitol wants. I'm just me."

Finnick smiled and looked a century older than his fifteen years. "That's what I like best about you, Cinna. I like that you're just you. I hope you don't ever change." Then he winked. "That's what you been doing the last few days, right? The design school is getting their remakes done?"

"How did you know?" Cinna asked, settling back on the soft sofa as Finnick approached with that wolf-graceful lope that had helped win him the last year's Hunger Games.

Finnick straddled his lap. He laughed. "Varro came in last night lookin' like a fool toucan with that bandage on his face." He sighed indulgently and ran his hand over Cinna's chest. "He went home all on his lonesome, that's for sure."

Cinna laughed back. "Well, I'm sorry I missed it."

Finnick studied Cinna's face with those rolling black pupils. "So what are you getting done? Not your mouth, I hope." He bent forward and nipped at Cinna's bottom lip. "I like that the way it is."

Cinna felt his cheeks glow hot and red and Finnick grinned, pleased with himself, rubbing his thumbs along Cinna's jaw.

"No," Cinna said. "I, um – I'm actually not changing anything. That's why I was gone for so long. They kept trying to make me pick, but… I don't know. The fashions this year are – they're not me, you know? They aren't _anyone_. They don't _say_anything, and… I come from a District where if you don't have something important to say, you just don't say it."

Finnick hummed and ran his tongue along the column of Cinna's neck. "Home's the same. You talk too much, you scare away all the fish."

Cinna didn't mention that the real reason he was gone was that he had been here, waiting at the bar and hoping that Finnick might make his way over, when he saw the red Occupied light click on outside Finnick's room.

That, he could have borne.

But when the light clicked off, it was Annika Templesmith who Finnick shushed out of the room on shaky legs. Finnick stood half-hidden in his doorway, one naked hip visible around the doorjamb, his lashes low and false-innocent and flirtatious as he ran a hand over the wide, hourglass curve barely constrained by the open-ribbed black corset she wore.

She.

_She._

It felt like Yew all over again.

It was different in places like the Capitol – _that's a sin city_, the old women always sniffed – or District Four – _unavoidable with all those men out on those infernal boats_– but the fact of the matter was, in District Seven, Cinna had been a black sheep.

He had rheumatic fever as a baby and was never quite strong enough to work on the skidroad, so he was abundantly aware that as far as his father was concerned, Cinna was a wasted pair of hands and an unearned empty stomach to feed. Cinna spent most of his time at the school with Miss Honey, a lovely young teacher shipped out by the Capitol when he was in his First Year. She encouraged Cinna to learn to read more than the proscribed Capitol Texts For District Seven, and by the time he was nine, he was reading her old university copies of _The Literature (v. II – IX; Snow)_ and _The Fall of the United States of America and Glorious Rise of Panem_. At fourteen, she slipped him a battered old sheath of papers that had once been lessons of philosophy and theology and psychology, annotated in faded yellow and spidery handwriting that Cinna could scarcely read.

She encouraged his drawing, too, and Cinna learned how to tell his stories through color and shape in a District where people were trained not to listen.

The Peacekeepers raided houses along the skidroad when Cinna was fifteen and they found an old book of poetry in Miss Honey's steamer trunk. She was hanged in the Dark Woods off the District square, in the direction of the high, barbed fences separating Seven from the Wilderness.

Only a handful of the thinner, smaller girls joined Cinna every day in staying at school until darkness was already falling and it took jumping cobblestones in threes to make it home in time for hardtack supper.

And then… Yew moved to the District center, and he stayed late at school, too. He knew how to write in cursive, the old writing, and he had a paint set with real violet paint. Yew had lived out in a Further Village until they were twelve and he moved into the heart of District Seven only because his dad was promoted to tyvee.

The first thing Cinna noticed about Yew was that he had hair the color of the heart of a flame, a brackish orange sort of auburn that glowed plum-purple when he turned his head just right near the windows.

The second thing Cinna noticed about Yew was that Yew didn't seem to understand that it didn't – it didn't work that way, in District Seven, he couldn't just sidle up to Cinna and chatter at him about the horrific odor of Grady's nosebag; what'd he have in there, raw reeking fish?

He couldn't grab Cinna's hand as they raced home one evening with the sun shining in yellow and violent violet stripes over the high trees, cicadas buzzing in chorus around them, buried in the mud below the leaves, below the trees.

He couldn't push Cinna up against the shady wall of the schoolhouse one afternoon and kiss him, right on the mouth, in soft, sucking pulls of lips that knew what they were doing against lips that very sincerely never thought would feel a kiss like this.

Only months after Cinna's first kiss, Yew was caught after-hours in the Near Woods, dick still wet with Anna Irons when the Peacekeepers dragged him into the square to lash him for breaking curfew.

The next month, a new tyvee was promoted and Yew was gone, shipped back to the Further Villages with Anna Irons in tow, and a month after that –

A month after that, Cinna was nineteen and left for the Capitol.

Finnick looked up from the curved place where Cinna's neck became his chest. "Of course, you know me. I do like it when you talk."

Cinna smiled down at the younger boy and put Anna and Annika out of his mind.

"Kiss me," Cinna said softly, tilting Finnick Odair's mouth up to his. Finnick smiled and slid his hands into Cinna's soft, brown hair, his tongue flicking into Cinna's mouth on first blush, no games. Finnick could kiss in a hundred different ways, and Cinna thought he'd probably been kissed in all of them now – shy, brazen, wet, laughing, pecking, panting, biting, in soft and sucking pulls that assured: he knew what he was doing.

"How do you want me?" Finnick asked into Cinna's lips as Cinna's hands skimmed over the long sides of Finnick's ribs. "Anything you want, Cinna. For you, anything you want."

Cinna pulled back and stared Finnick in the eyes as the tall, thin boy rocked over his lap. "I want you however you'll have me."

Finnick bit his lip and his kiss-bitten pout twisted. A storm blew hot and fast behind his green eyes, but then in a flash of light it was gone and he was grinning, reaching two fingers into the pocket of his shiny pants. He pulled out a tiny bag of pink powder. "Do you have class in the morning?"

Cinna shook his head.

Finnick slid up close right where it made Cinna whimper under his breath, and skated his mouth over Cinna's cheek to his ear. "You want me all night?"

Cinna blushed again even as he nodded, flipping Finnick onto his back beneath him on the black sofa. "Yes."

Finnick beamed and scratched lightly over Cinna's back, soft black material bunching under his fingers. "You wanna cut or should I?"

"Let's just wait," Cinna said, settling his hips down against the cradle of Finnick's thighs. "We can save it for later… a pick-me-up."

Finnick pouted, but started sliding Cinna's soft black shirt up his torso all the same.

Cinna was nineteen years old when he arrived in the Capitol, but twenty before he got up the courage to visit any of the clubs his classmates talked about – Ω, Et Circus, Capital, The Rose Club. He watched the 65TH Hunger Games from the bar at 'District Fourteen,' trembling ice-tumbler of something blue and steamy in his hand. All four curved walls of the club projected the four cameras of the Games, and tickets for the door had been sold out eighteen months in advance. Cinna only made the crowd because the design students always got the best spectator seats for the Games; training for the jobs they were all vying to have.

Cinna had felt claustrophobic in the crush of people drinking and laughing and cheering as children died all around them, trapped in the panorama of Games footage so that it felt like the patrons of District Fourteen were in the Arena themselves.

A few months after, Cinna was in the club again, sitting at the bar alone and sketching out the bits of people's outfits that he liked – and there weren't many, not this season; everything was lace and it was ridiculous, like a crowd of walking marshmallows – when someone sidled up beside him, so close he could smell their sharp lemon soap. "Buy me a drink, sailor?"

Cinna had started so badly that his own drink spilled, crystallizing into crackles all along the ice-bar and making Tyson, the bartender who knew full well that Cinna was a one-drink customer, scowl. "I – you – " He looked at the smirking boy. "You're Finnick Odair."

"I am," Finnick Odair agreed, pressing up closer to Cinna and not seeming to mind that he was nearly naked in a club made of ice. "And who are you?" He trailed his finger over the top of Cinna's sketchpad. "Thiebaud Brabantio?"

Cinna blushed so hard he thought he might melt right off the bar. "No. He's one of my professors, though."

Finnick's eyebrows rose delightedly. "Well, I was just making fun, but that's fascinating. Now… that drink?"

Cinna shook his head. "You're fifteen. You can't drink."

Finnick Odair tossed his head back and laughed. Cinna liked the long, smooth line of Finnick's throat. Then the boy leaned right on the bar and said, "Heyo, Tyson… can I drink?"

Tyson leaned over the bar and held Finnick's chin in one blue-dyed hand. He bent down and kissed Finnick Odair soundly on the lips. "You sure can, sugar. What do you want?"

Finnick smiled beatifically and looked over at Cinna. "What are you buying me?"

Cinna flushed again and shook his head. "I – I don't – " He shrugged helplessly. "I just get the cheapest thing."

Finnick made a face. "Well, that's no good. Tyson, give us two Golden Tridents and put it on my tab." He winked at Cinna. "There's your proof I can drink. They couldn't well name one after me and not serve it to me, could they?" He hopped up on the barstool beside Cinna's and leaned his elbow on the ice of the bar, staring up at Cinna with a little smile on his face. "That just wouldn't be _fair_, would it?"

"Why are you talking to me?"

Cinna winced. It came out so much… younger than he'd intended.

Finnick smiled and reached out again, this time running his fingers along Cinna's shoulder. It felt to Cinna like the touch burned through his shirt. "I can tell a District boy when I see one. Guess I felt a little homesick. Where you from, sailor?"

"Seven," Cinna admitted quietly, looking down at his hands. "But I've been here a year."

"Why'd you leave? I thought Seven was lovely on my Victory Tour. All those trees. All that snow. We don't get any of that down in Four, you know. Until I visited Seven, the only Snow I'd ever seen was the President." Finnick laughed a full, fruity laugh, low in his throat, and it made Cinna laugh with him, nervous and reedy and embarrassed.

"There wasn't anything left for me there," Cinna said. "I'm not exactly the ideal type for a lumberjack."

"No, you're much too pretty," Finnick said smoothly with a wink as Tyson delivered two Golden Tridents, something pale yellow and fizzy in a big glass with a sugared rim and two shots in shades of syrupy gold alongside.

Cinna stared.

"Just drop 'em in and drink up," Finnick said. He grinned down the bar. "Thank you, Tyson."

Tyson blew a blue-lipped kiss and Finnick tilted a shoulder coquettishly. Cinna poured the two shotglasses into his Collins glass and took a sip.

He spluttered. "That's _really_sweet!"

Finnick shrugged around the rim of his own half-empty glass. "So who'd you leave behind in District Seven, mister artist? Anyone… special?"

Cinna looked down and shook his head again. "No. Just family."

"Who's in your family?" Finnick asked, sliding his empty glass back down the bar to Tyson and giving him a thumbs' up for a refill.

"Four older brothers, little sister, mother and father, three sisters-in-law, nine nephews, six nieces, three dogs," Cinna listed, looking down at the way the blue lights pulsing overhead made the sugar crystals on his glass shimmer.

Finnick nodded slowly, a hundred unreadable thoughts clouding his green eyes. Then the second Golden Trident came slaloming down the bar and Finnick brightened, dropping the two shots into the glass with little wet sounds like goldfish mouths.

"I've got that many cousins," he said. "Lots of little bellies to fill."

"I guess your family's really proud of you, being a Victor," Cinna said. He took another tentative sip of his Golden Trident, and the smell of cinnamon overwhelmed him.

Finnick shrugged easily, his lean, sharp shoulders loose with booze and self-confidence. "Is yours proud of you coming here to be a designer?"

"Well, I'm not a designer yet," Cinna said evasively. He took another gulp of the fizzing golden drink.

The only person in his family who'd ever paid him much attention was Hannie, and she wasn't speaking to him now. Not that he really had a way to contact her besides the slow District Mail, but she hadn't returned any of his letters.

Yet. She hadn't returned them _yet_. Cinna always hoped that she would answer, that she would move here with him once she turned nineteen, even though she'd said that she would never leave District Seven.

All the same, he understood her fury at his leaving. Cinna's eighteenth year, Hannie's best friend Rosamine had died in the Arena, flayed alive by badger-mutts at all of thirteen years old. That Cinna was moving to the Capitol – much less to find work dressing up those Games – was unforgivable in her eyes.

Cinna understood that. He did. But he could not, would not, live in that District anymore.

_"Can't you just not be gay?" Hannie had asked, her fingernails digging desperately into his forearm._

And Cinna had kissed the side of her head. "Can you just not be a girl? Or not be from District Seven? Or not be the ferning smartest girl Panem's ever seen?"

Hannie's brow lowered and hardened. She shrugged deeper into the recesses of her thick, red coat. "You're no better than the footman."

Finnick broke Cinna from his reverie with a stroking hand up Cinna's thigh. "You wanna dance?"

Cinna blinked. "I – okay. Are you sure you want people to see – " He broke off. _It was different in places like the Capitol – _that's a sin city_ – or District Four – _unavoidable with all those men out on those infernal boats__. Of course Finnick Odair wouldn't mind being seen with a man.

Finnick jumped down from his perch and held out a hand. He smiled warmly and Cinna noted that his face was still real; the smile rose a little higher on the left than the right, and he had the tiniest hint of a gap between his front teeth. There were pale freckles across the bridge of his nose. Cinna took hold of his hand and let Finnick Odair pull him onto the writhing dance floor full of lacy marshmallow-people and spinning blue lights.

Cinna quickly learned that 'dancing' with Finnick Odair was less dancing and more kissing up against the cold club wall, feeling the bass thumping through the floor and ice and his bones. Finnick was tall and lean in a way that suggested his bones had kept growing without permission from the rest of him, all over-large hands and feet and narrow, tapered hips. His skin was soft with Capitol treatments but he still had calluses on his hands – probably just to remind everyone that he wasn't just a fancy club kid, he was a Victor and he was a fisherman's son. He pushed Cinna up against the slick, cold wall and slipped a hot tongue into his mouth, kissing him fiercely.

Finnick pulled back to let Cinna gulp a breath. "What's your name, anyway, sailor?"

"Cinna."

Finnick sucked a little mark into the smooth skin under Cinna's jaw. "Cinna from District Seven." He ran one of those huge hands over the front of Cinna's black pants and Cinna squawked, turning red. "You wanna go to my room, Cinna from District Seven?"

Cinna shook his head and grabbed Finnick's wrist. "You're fifteen. I shouldn't – I should go, I can't – "

Finnick leaned up against him, holding him in place with his weight. "I may be fifteen, but _you're_a virgin." He smiled indulgently. "Have you even kissed a boy before?"

"Yes," Cinna said shortly.

Finnick nuzzled his neck. "Did he break your heart?"

"Yes."

Finnick tutted once and leaned in again, pecking a sweet little kiss against Cinna's lips. "I won't ever break your heart."

* * *

><p>Finnick sighed, clicking the buttons on his videoscreen's remote control.<p>

"I always feel like it's rude to air this one so close to the Games," he muttered, tucking his head under Cinna's chin. On the huge screen across one of Finnick's sea-green walls, the final three top Capitol chefs sweated and sautéed in a gleaming kitchen. The amount of food on the prep table behind them could have fed all of District Seven or Four for months. It always reminded Cinna of the massive deliveries of the tessera trains: bushels of flaxen grain and blush-pink fruit from Eleven, crawling shelled things from Four and glistening, fat red meat from Ten. Everything bore the yellow Inspection stickers from Nine.

The screen flashed and switched to Annika and Claudius Templesmith discussing the previous night's entrées with President Snow. That anyone could _complain_about anything with that much food available was a part of the show's draw for Cinna – the unfathomable ignorance of the Capitol and the President's steadfast greed was like a logging accident, stomach-turning but fascinating and incomprehensible.

Cinna lazily ran his hand up and down Finnick's spine, measuring vertebrae with his thumb. "It is almost the Reaping, isn't it."

Finnick nodded, reaching for the bag of powder on the end table without taking his eyes from the screaming red lobsters on the videoscreen. "Two weeks." He paused. "Friday, I get to go home. I'm gonna be a Mentor this year."

Cinna nodded, watching a brunoise of white garlic, purple-red Spanish onion, and bright yellow bell peppers smoke in oil on the screen. "That's all right. I have exams and practicals for the next few weeks anyhow, to prepare for the Games."

"Do you wanna do District Four?" Finnick asked, dipping his fingertips into the powder and licking it up. He offered a pink fingertip to Cinna and Cinna sucked it into his mouth, eyes watering at the bitter taste of the drug. He sighed and relaxed back against the sofa, feeling the tingling light swell slowly through his veins.

"I don't really get to choose," Cinna said. "We're just shadowing this year, anyway. But my last practical went really well, so I might get a Career District anyhow."

Finnick nodded, stretching out over Cinna in a way that made Cinna groan low in the back of his throat as Finnick's cock smeared through the mess of come on their bellies. "Well, I hope you get a good District. You really – you _get_it, you know? What it's like to be a District kid. None of the other designers get that."

Cinna laughed softly. "Well, none of them have ever been outside the Capitol. How can anyone really design for something they've never seen?"

Finnick pulled himself up to sit astride Cinna's hips again. "You see people better than most anyway, Cinna from District Seven."

Cinna yawned and slid his hands up Finnick's long, muscular thighs. "I'm tired."

Finnick shook the little bag of pink powder.

Cinna shook his head. "No, thanks… just lie down." He felt his face heat. "Cuddle with me."

Finnick suddenly looked his fifteen years old. He smiled shyly, wonderfully lopsided, and settled back down against Cinna's chest.

"You're the only person who ever wants to cuddle with me," he said thoughtfully, one hand trailing shapes over the slope of Cinna's side.

"Well – I mean, we don't have to…" Cinna said, trailing off. "I mean, if that's not what you come here to – "

"No," Finnick said. "No, with you, it's okay."

Cinna kissed the top of Finnick's head, tasting the salt of sweat and the sweet soapiness of Finnick's soft hair. "Turn up the volume on the videoscreen."

Finnick clicked buttons on the remote and turned to face the screen, nuzzling his jaw against Cinna's chest before settling down against him with a suppressed yawn of his own. Cinna folded his arms around Finnick's waist, wondering absently if Finnick should be so thin. Oh, well – that was the fad this year. Next season it would likely change and poundage and curves would be in style again, if this finale of The Flavor Games was any indication.

President Snow, the Templesmiths, and Rytz Escoffier were just finishing an entire quairtridge each, twice as big as a groosling and thrice as rare – a designated food of the Capitol; Cinna's brother had caught one wild once and they had to turn it over to the Peacekeepers – glazed in something rich and red that shone and crackled against its pale meat, surrounded by pale, quivering amber pears and parsnips. President Snow lifted a forkful of vibrant greens and ribbons of translucent, pale red meat with a look of distaste, and both Finnick and Cinna shook their heads.

The next chef stepped towards the table nervously as Avoxes ushered plates in a riot of orange, scarlet, and freckled black flecks to the Gamemakers.

"I have made for you a salad of baby squid and tigerprawns with a beetroot-tomato coulis, cracked garlic, thyme, and aniseed, on a lemongrass brochette with an orange, vanillin, and clovamom glaze," said a nervous-looking man with a pointed face like a rat. His skin was bright green and flowering with clusters of grafted herbs. He was grotesque. "I really wanted to capture all of the flavors and textures of District Four."

Finnick snorted. "Why would you do all that nonsense to perfectly good squid? If he wanted to emulate District Four, he should've just pulled its insides out, cut off the beak, skinned it, and eaten it."

Cinna pulled a face. "Squids have _beaks_? Wait do you – eat them _raw_?"

Finnick laughed and leaned down to mouth at Cinna's shoulder. "You're so cute with your naïvete, landlubber. What does a person eat in District Seven, then? Baked trees and snow soup?"

Cinna turned to catch Finnick's lips in a clinging kiss. "Potatoes, mostly. But my sister makes a mean hasenpfeffer. Rabbit stew," he explained.

Finnick pulled back with a look of anguish. "You _eat_rabbits?"

Cinna chuckled. "Rabbits are a lot less off-putting than live squid."

Finnick bit his arm lightly. "They're not still alive." He paused. "You don't talk about your family much. But when you do, it's your sister."

Cinna made a noncommittal noise and let his eyes fall shut. "She's the only one I really miss. I'm hoping that she might – she's smart enough for University, if she'd apply. I try to send her letters and drawings every week to show her what it's like here, how much opportunity there is compared to Seven, so maybe she'll consider it."

"Does she know about you?" Finnick tangled his legs between Cinna's just to make his point.

Cinna sighed. "In a place like Seven… I think someone like me stuck out in all the wrong ways. So everyone suspected, but Hannie was the only one who really knew for certain. We used to be close. When she was a little girl."

Finnick clicked buttons again and the volume lowered to a soft hum in the background, scarcely more than a gentle electric chirping. "I don't have any brothers or sisters. But a couple of my cousins are close to my age. We have a fishing boat together." He smiled sleepily. "It's got striped sails."

Cinna ruffled the fine hair at the nape of Finnick's neck. "I learned to draw so I could make books for Hannie." He smiled sadly. "Faerytales."

"What's a faerytale?"

Cinna pressed his lips to the top of Finnick's head again. "Don't you have faerytales in District Four?" He sighed. "They're old stories. Older than the Dark Days. I think they might even come from the Other Countries."

"There are no Other Countries," Finnick muttered, drawing a five-pointed star shape over Cinna's ribs with his fingertips.

"I don't know," Cinna said. "There are words in every District that don't exist anywhere else, and they had to come from somewhere, don't you think? But the faerytales are like… they're just stories for little kids. About magic and monsters and lessons, I guess. I would draw them for her and we would read them every night while she fell asleep." He smiled. "I left them all with her. I hope she kept them."

"We have stories like that," Finnick said. "They're not called faerytales, though. We call them myths."

"I used to pretend to be the faery in Cinderella, since my name's so similar," Cinna said, laughing a little sadly. "I think that's when Hannie figured me out. You know… eight year old boy in a dress probably said something."

"I don't know Cinderella," Finnick yawned. "We have stories like Hercules and Orpheus and Persephone and like that. They're sailing stories. All the old men tell them out on the boats and everyone knows that there are the myths that are true, like Amphitrite and Calypso, and the ones that are for kids, like naiads and mermaids."

"I don't know those," Cinna murmured. "In Seven, all of the stories are just for kids. We tell them to children and then… we all just stop talking as we get older. But I don't like that. I don't like the silence, it… it keeps things from changing. I want to change things, you know? I want to keep telling stories."

"Tell me a story," Finnick muttered, warm into Cinna's neck. "A faerytale."

Cinna hummed thoughtfully and nuzzled Finnick's bronze hair, thinking. "They don't have very happy endings."

"Nothing does," Finnick murmured, almost completely asleep over Cinna's heart.

* * *

><p>Finnick left for the Districts and Cinna's world became a torrential downpour of silks and satins and lacquers and aromatherapy oils and dyes that streaked his fingers with umber and eggplant and chartreuse that no amount of soft, lemon-scented bubbles could wash away. In the week leading up to the Reaping, all of the design students were thrown into an orgy of work and nervous breakdowns in the preparations of their practicals. Cinna designed an Opening Ceremonies costume for Two; a thousand tiny sheets of paper-thin mirror in cascading scales like the dragons in the story of the boy wizard Hannie had loved when she was seven. Below the epaulets, he painted luminescent lacquers, making the dragon seem to glow from within the way they did in the stories.<p>

"Stunning, you bitch," tutted Portia, a pretty black-haired girl in his class, with a grin as she elbowed him in the side backstage at the exam, "I don't know where you get it."

Cinna smiled bashfully. "Thanks for the tip about the aluminate."

Portia nodded. "I hope we get the same District. Brabantio always prefers your designs over ours."

"'Yours' who?" Cinna whispered, peeking around the curtain as his model stomped his way back up the runway.

"The girls," Portia muttered. "Brabantio always promotes men to Designer over women, hadn't you noticed?"

"You'll get Designer," Cinna whispered back absently as his silver dragon reappeared behind the curtain, beaming. Cinna noticed a drip of aluminate along the back of the dragon's knee and quickly grabbed his brushes to touch up the effect. "Your Five is brilliant."

Portia rolled her eyes. "It's not hard to think to make chainmail in the shape of chemical formulas. It's been done for Five six times in the past."

Cinna looked up with a quirked eyebrow. "But you're the first to model _real_formulas, and the first to make the whole thing glow."

Portia pretended not to look too self-satisfied as she nudged Cinna's shoulder with the toe of her boot. "Yeah, I knew I should have kept the light effects to myself."

Cinna blew on the drying aluminate glaze and stood. "Why didn't you?"

Portia shrugged. She looked down at her shoes – ultra-high green box toes with thin heels like daggers and stripes of silver feathers along the sides; Cinna could tell she'd made them herself with the way the stitching looped like quiltwork – and glanced back up at him through her tiered lashes. "Do you want to want to go to Capital after the show? I've got – I have two tickets for upscreen seats for the Reaping."

"Sure," Cinna said, checking the aluminate quickly under the dim light of the curtains. Then he looked up. "Oh, you don't mean – oh. Portia, I'd love to go with you… as a friend. And a colleague. But – "

Portia waved her hand. "No, don't – I feel silly, I should have…" she laughed. "God, this is the fourth time that's happened to me. I should start listening to Venia."

"Well, don't do that," Cinna joked, touching her shoulder. "Listening to Venia… that's just taking things too far."

Portia smiled back and nodded as the model of Four, wearing a gauzy blue mess – Cloisette's admittance was pure nepotism, what with her last name being Messalla, Cinna thought bitterly. She paused. "Are you – you have a boyfriend, then? You know for sure?"

Cinna shrugged a shoulder and his face got red and hot. "I don't know whether he'd agree he's a boyfriend, but… yeah, I'm sure."

"Are they in our class?"

"No," Cinna said. He glanced over his shoulder and cupped a hand over her ear. "Finnick Odair."

"Shut up!" hissed Portia, grabbing his elbow. "He's a fetus, Cinna."

"He's not a fetus," Cinna argued. "He's a Victor. And he's – he's a lot more than that. He's interesting."

"I thought he was seeing Atala," Portia said thoughtfully. "She's always going to District Fourteen in the mornings to see him."

Cinna tried to ignore the hard-rolling thump of his heart stuttering. "I don't know. He's with me most nights. That's all I know about it. We've never, you know, talked about it or anything. But he's got his own room at District Fourteen, so… I'm not in charge of him," Cinna said with a thin laugh. "He can do whoever he wants, I guess."

"And so could you," Portia clarified. "You just don't want to do me?"

"I'm sorry," Cinna said, wincing. "If it makes you feel better, I wish I did."

Portia shrugged comically. "It kind of does."

And she turned to her model covered in biohazard compounds and began to break tiny glass tubes, making the phenyl oxalate and hydrogen peroxide bleed into rhodamine-B and glow a violent bright red that burned the webs behind Cinna's eyelids and made him think of a fire.

As her model stepped into the glowing red heels and stomped out past the curtain, Cinna held out his hand for Portia to slap. He pulled her in for a hug, and noticed that her hair smelled like sweet maple and bitter pine.

Capital was a different sort of club than District Fourteen. There were no private rooms, for one thing, and it was always broiling hot inside with the crush of bodies crowding the all-access dance floor. Where District Fourteen had four curved walls of polished ice and would be broadcasting the Reaping in panorama tonight, Capital had just one screen suspended from the ceiling. Its walls were scalloped silver and the bar was a long, twisted trough with live golden turtles swimming inside. The music was crushingly loud on a good day; today, the announcements of the pre-Games show were so resonant that it hurt Cinna's teeth.

"I'll get drinks," Portia yelled in his ear. "We're in the third terrace, I'll find you!"

Cinna clambered into one of the trellised silver lifts. Annika Templesmith pressed in beside him. Her ample bosom crushed against Cinna's shoulder and his nose filled with a talcum and rose scent that made him dearly want to sneeze.

"I know you," Annika said sharply, looking up at him. "You always take Finnick's nights until after-hours."

Cinna opened and shut his mouth. He watched Annika on television; had seen her in the newspapers with her husband, wearing Brabantio originals; had seen her emerge from Finnick's private room on shaking legs. "I guess so."

She raised a needle-thin orange eyebrow. "You're Cinna the design student, aren't you?"

"Yes." Cinna frowned.

The lift doors opened on the first terrace and Annika hustled her way out. She turned and smiled a wolf's smile, all orange lips and diamond-veneered teeth. "So nice to make your acquaintance, Cinna from District Seven."

Cinna caught a glimpse of the pure white terrace beyond the lift doors, filled with a colorful stick-thin menagerie of Very Important People lifting glasses of champagne, and the bearded, plump-lipped silhouette of President Snow standing in the thick of it, watching the lift doors close.

For the rest of the ride up to the third terrace, Cinna felt like something with suckers and tentacles and too many legs was crawling its way up his spine.

The third terrace was painted a matte pewter-gray, filled with rows of simple black stadium seating. Portia had gotten tickets for the third row, and Cinna squeezed his way past twenty knees and settled into his own seat, laying his black suede coat over the seat beside it for Portia. He curled his knees up under him like beech tree roots and pulled his sketchpad out of his bag, sketching the slope of Finnick's back in long, sharp-cut lines.

"And we're down to thirty minutes before the start of the 66TH Reaping Ceremonies," bubbled Claudius Templesmith on the huge, hanging screen. "We're about to tune in live with Liddy Frippery over in District One; how are you, Liddy?"

The skeletal woman in a towering blue wig and yellow-dyed skin grinned widely and Cinna grimaced; she looked like she was falling apart. "The weather in District One is just fine today and so am I! We have an excited crop of eligible youngsters coming up this year, Claudius. I'm very excited."

"Have you met with any of the final selections yet, Liddy?"

"No, but Gloss and Cashmere assure me that Frill's victory last year was a _real_booster for the this year's eligible boys and girls and that District One is turning out patriots stronger than ever," the talking skeleton said.

"Yes, we'll be talking with Cashmere after the ceremonies," simpered Claudius Templesmith. "We're at fifteen minutes on the countdown clock for the 66TH Reaping Ceremonies, for those of you just tuning in…"

"Hey," Portia said, pushing a crackling pink drink into Cinna's hands and swiping her black bangs off her face. "It's a madhouse in here."

"It is," Cinna agreed. "How'd you get tickets, anyway?"

Portia took a sip of her own pink drink and shrugged, settling into the seat beside Cinna and toeing off her stiletto shoes. "Professor Brabantio gave them to me… he overheard me and Venia talking and he just offered them. So, I took them. It was kind of weird."

Cinna frowned. _ So nice to make your acquaintance, Cinna from District Seven._"That is weird."

Portia settled back against her seat with a sigh as the lights dimmed. "So tomorrow we find out which of these kids we'll be learning how to dress." She raised her glass to Cinna and he clinked his drink against hers. "May the odds ever be in our favor."

The swelling, drumbeat theme song for The Hunger Games blared across the screen and a great cheer rang out in Capital. Cinna shivered. The Panem flag unfurled across the huge, hanging screen and Claudius Templesmith intoned the annual introduction, the history of the Games, as a gruesome actor-montage of the Crimes of the Districts and the Annihilation of District Thirteen played out. The cameras cut seamlessly to the pink-veined white marble square of District One, and Liddy Frippery's bones announced the names of two small children, overtaken quickly by the final Volunteers, a huge sixteen-year-old boy with icy blond hair to his waist and an obscenely curvaceous eighteen-year-old girl with a menacing scar down the side of her face.

"It's the same every year," Portia muttered in Cinna's ear as Claudius, Liddy, and Cashmere Bibelot talked about gamblers' odds and training diets. "We don't even need to see the Tributes to know how to design for them."

Cinna nodded, already zoning out as he started sketching a stacked pyramidal pantsuit that followed the spidering pattern of the pink veins in District One's marble. The Reaping episode was almost six hours long, Cinna had learned last year when he was finally on the Capitol end of it, and Portia was right – it wasn't any different this year than it had been last year.

"It's your boyfriend," Portia sang in his ear, elbowing him, when District Four's Tributes had been chosen and Finnick's face filled the screen. There were catcalls and swoons all over Capital as the camera panned, low and slow, down the length of Finnick's toned body.

Cinna blushed. "Like I said, I don't know if he'd call it that."

His charcoal found paper, and he drew Finnick's face as it had looked when he fell asleep listening to the story of Cinderella; curls askew and lips soft, lashes long and fluttering as he dreamed.

"And we're live from District Seven," announced Claudius Templesmith. Cinna's head jerked up reflexively and his stomach felt sour with the sight of District Seven's square covered in fresh snow. It covered up the mire of being the place where Miss Honey was hanged or where Yew was beaten or where Cinna had gotten his very first kiss, pressed up against the shadowed wall of the schoolhouse.

"We'll be speaking with District Seven's only living Victor, Blight Baecker, after the Ceremonies. And we're turning it over to you, Tinsel."

"Thank you, Claudius," said Tinsel Garnish graciously. Cinna had to suppress the shudder that ran through him at the sight of her; she was fairly benign in appearance, as far as escorts went, but as long as he lived, he would never forget the fear she had inspired in him as he shivered in the boys' pen every year.

He scanned the crowds in the pens and his eyes alighted on all of his nieces and nephews looking so much older than they had when he left. Henry had a little ugly dirt-smudge mustache now and was stroking it pensively. Cinna had to stifle his smile. Henry had always been such a clown.

The male Tribute was the younger cousin of Anna Irons, and Cinna tried not to feel some vindication as he trembled his way to the stage in his heavy green coat with its sleeves too short. He was missing three fingers on his left hand and walked with a limp, and Cinna wondered where it was chronic or if the accident had been recent.

"And lovely ladies, it's your turn!" said Tinsel with a heart-shaped purple smile. She reached into the glass ball. "District Seven, your female Tribute for the 66TH Hunger Games is Johanna Mason!"

Cinna dropped his glass and it shattered into pieces on the hard black floor of the third terrace.

Johanna stepped out of the girls' pen with her head down, long brown hair catching the breeze and floating like wings around her bright red coat. She wrapped held her own hands tight behind her back and walked to the stage with white knuckles.

Cinna pressed his hands over his mouth and felt the bright victory of his performance at the afternoon's practical and the encounter in the elevator with Annika Templesmith and the electric soft hum of Finnick's room and Thiebaud Brabantio offering these tickets to Portia and the sickly alcoholic-sweet taste of the pink drink all come rushing up his throat.

"What?" Portia asked, touching his arm. "Cinna, are you okay?"

He shook his head and leaned over the railing, showering the crowd below with sticky pink sick. He looked back up to Portia's huge, concerned eyes framed in those tiered lashes.

"That's my little sister."

* * *

><p>"It's my fault," Finnick moaned, tearing his hands through his shock of wild hair. "It's my fault, Cinna, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, it's my fault – "<p>

"How is it your fault?"

"I book up all my time in the clubs with you and then I don't have to take clients. It's a warning." Finnick leaned close to the table and took in lines of the bright pink candycaine. He looked up at Cinna with huge eyes full of tears. "I am so, so sorry Cinna. I never meant for anything bad to happen." Finnick looked down at his bare knees sticking out from that opalescent swath of netting. His hands shook as he cut another line on the tabletop. "I never meant for _anything_bad to happen."

Cinna snatched the card out of Finnick's hand and threw it across the room before swiping his hand over the pink powder, ruining Finnick's meticulous effort and making the younger boy whimper.

The first thing Cinna had done when the Tributes and Mentors arrived in the Capitol was try to get an audience with Johanna, but since he was shadowing for Four, he wasn't allowed. He tried to get in touch with Blight, and Peacekeepers had shown up at his doorstep and told him that he wasn't to interfere with the Tributes or Mentors of any District that was not under his purview.

So he returned to District Fourteen and waited for Finnick.

Cinna collapsed onto the black sofa beside him. "What do you mean… clients?"

Finnick covered his face with his hands and shook his head. Cinna grabbed his shoulder.

"What do you mean, clients?"

Finnick reached across Cinna's lap for Cinna's bag and pulled out the sketchpad and a stick of charcoal. He tossed through pages until he found a blank sheet and wrote, in cramped, square, undereducated letters,

_President Snow threatened my family if I didn't._

"Didn't what?" hissed Cinna, taking his hand off Finnick's skin.

_The Gamemakers. Their wives. Their friends._

Cinna pulled back. "You're a whore?"

Finnick's face looked fierce and it rolled over Cinna, even in his anger, that this was still the boy who at fourteen years old had killed seven children with his own hands and his own gleaming weapon.

_I am NOT a whore._ Finnick wrote, underlining the words so dark that the charcoal shattered into fine black powder that stained his fingers. _I'm a slave._

Cinna's eyes closed and he fell back against the soft back of the sofa. They were quiet for a long time, except for the ever-present soft electric hum in the background airspace of Finnick's room, and the soft hiccupping breaths that Finnick tried to hide.

"Do you even like men?" Cinna asked finally, his voice breaking. He only had the energy to open one eye and turn his head to look over at where Finnick had curled his arms around himself like he could wear his limbs as clothing.

Finnick's young green eyes were wide and desperate and he opened his mouth once, twice, shrugging and shaking his head and Cinna closed his eyes again, defeated to the bones and – "I like _you_," Finnick said shakily. "I don't even know what I like yet. But I like you."

One of his huge, callused hands tentatively ran up Cinna's arm. Cinna opened his eyes and looked back at Finnick again, pushing back the hot, pricking feeling in his eyes, burying it deep.

"I like you," Finnick repeated. He pressed his face against the side of Cinna's shoulder and squeezed his hands. "I picked you, Cinna. You're the only one I've ever gotten to choose."

Cinna looked down just as Finnick looked up, and everything was fast – too fast – when Cinna's lips crashed down onto Finnick's, pushing the younger boy down flat on his back on the sofa, hips colliding and long thighs tangled. This time, it was Cinna's lips that pulled and sucked and spelled that they knew what they were doing, and Finnick was the lost one. He dragged his mouth over the wing of Finnick's hipbone as gold netting unknotted and slipped to the floor and Finnick pushed his fingers through Cinna's hair, trying to lead his head –

"No," Cinna said, already crawling back up Finnick's body, lips and bottom teeth trailing and catching at bronze skin and flat nipples. "This time I get to choose, Finnick. You're the only thing I've ever chosen, either."

Cinna Mason would never forget the first night he lay beneath Finnick Odair on the same black sofa in the same room, walls of carved and shaded iridescent ice just barely mirroring everything and just barely showing the dance floor beyond as nothing more than a delicate glow of alien light, the silence of the ice and the ebb and flow of Finnick's soothing voice just barely masking that infernal, incessant electric hum from behind the walls of Finnick's room. He was scared and shaky and a little bit drunk and it _hurt_ and Finnick had kissed him, sloppy and wet, just behind his ear and said, _thank you_. Since that night, only three times had Finnick been the one spread out below Cinna, mouthing at his shoulder and legs wrapped up tight around Cinna's ribs.

"Why me?" panted Cinna against the side of Finnick Odair's face. "Why did you have to pick me?"

Finnick looked up at Cinna with pupils that rolled like dice. "You don't hurt me. Not ever. You're so _polite_about everything. You're a good District boy. I like that."

Cinna crushed his mouth against Finnick's lips. It could barely be considered a kiss – more teeth clicking together and wet-licking tongues. Cinna bit Finnick's lip and tugged, and Finnick mewled and rolled them, holding Cinna's shoulders down to the black suede of the soda as he slid back down onto him. Cinna's eyes snapped shut as his hands found Finnick's skinny, powerful hips.

After, Finnick held Cinna close, clutching him as though he thought that if Cinna left now, he might never come back.

"I am a District boy," Cinna whispered finally, into the inches of space between his mouth and Finnick's chest. "You didn't think about that at all."

* * *

><p>The Tributes in Finnick's charge were older than he was.<p>

Cinna didn't speak to them as he measured and tapered and took in their hems on designs that weren't his, and tried to keep an upbeat smile as he washed their hair and waxed their legs and underarms and patted the boy's hand consolingly when his eyes watered at the sharp, stinging depilatory cream that would keep his face smooth until he died – even if he was crowned Victor and lived another fifty years.

Portia, he knew, was the opposite. She'd been assigned to Two, to her delight, and regaled Cinna joyously about how funny and flirtatious the boy, Ajax, was during his prep sessions, and how her girl was just the _perfect_human canvas.

Cinna nodded. He remembered them from the Reaping episode – both were stunning, older, confident. Enormous. Strong. Well-fed.

Either could easily kill Johanna.

"I'm so jealous you get to piece for Hemant, though," Portia sighed, swirling her finger in the bottom of her pink drink at Capital the night the Training Scores would be announced for the twenty-four Tributes. "Her Opening Ceremonies designs are _so_intimidating."

"Shut up," groused Cinna, almost good-natured. "You've got Massaro, that's one step down from Brabantio himself. You outpaced me and you know it. You… are… fishing." He smiled at Portia best as he could and punctuated his last three words with little taps to her nose.

"I'm not fishing!" Portia smiled and dribbled more pink drink into her mouth. He looked up at Cinna from beneath her chandelier eyelashes. "Orlando asked me out for Saturday night."

Cinna smiled and nudged her shoulder with his own. "Congratulations… he's a catch." He nodded encouragingly when Portia looked up. "Really. That's good."

Portia nodded and turned her glass over in her hands. "And you're sure you really want Finnick? Even though – "

"It's not his fault," Cinna said, his throat tight with guilt. "It isn't, Portia. _He_didn't do anything wrong."

_I did._

"But he's teaching his Tributes how to kill your sister," Portia whispered, glancing over her shoulder.

Cinna swallowed and exhaled through his nose. He forced a tight-lipped smile onto his face. "Yeah, but Blight Baecker's teaching her how to kill my Fours right back. And have you seen Blight? Three times bigger than Finnick."

Portia snorted. "He's three times _wider_. I don't know if that's necessarily great."

Cinder raised an eyebrow. "I have faith in my sister. And I have faith in Finnick." He sighed again.

The lights dimmed as Portia squeezed Cinna's forearm and rested her head against his shoulder, and the jubilant theme song of The Hunger Games made a rippling roar go up around Capital, the noise ricocheting in waves as it rose up from the general admission through the First Terrace, Second, and up to Cinna and Portia in the Third.

The stunning Tributes from One cheered and preened and earned kisses on the face from gorgeous Cashmere as they placed two 9's. Portia let out a whoop when Ajax was called 10 and his pretty, auburn-haired partner an 8.

Finnick applauded luxuriantly from his shell-shaped lounge as Boy Four scored an 8 and Girl Four a 7. He had the slightest wisp of seafoam green froth bunched at the apex of his thighs. If he shifted an inch, it would be indecent.

"Is it even exciting to get him naked?" Portia asked Cinna dryly under her breath. "I mean, you don't even get to see anything the rest of us don't."

Cinna's cheeks stained red. "Portia!"

"What?" She shrugged innocently. "It's true! If I tilt my head like this – " she demonstrated – "I can definitely see a little bit of little bits."

"You cannot," Cinna squawked, shoving her shoulder.

"Okay," Portia acquiesced, holding up her hands in a truce. Only once Cinna had a mouthful of his own pink drink did Portia lean over and whisper, "_little bits_" wetly in his ear.

He snorted alcohol up his nose and Portia snickered and Cinna coughed and spluttered and let out a nervous giggle when he'd finally swallowed, too.

But the laugh died out when Blight Baecker's face fell as Granit Irons scored a 6. At least he looked tall and imposing in his forest-green suit with its high winged collars, and to pull a 6 with only seven fingers and one good leg? He must have some serious power. Somewhere, a Sponsor who liked long odds would choose Seven, as long as –

But standing beside Granit, half-hidden by his shoulder, the female Tribute from District Seven looked small and bewildered. Hannie was a fée wood nymph in her green dress, long brown hair teased into unnaturally thick curls around her face. She couldn't hurt a fly.

It wasn't the girl that Cinna remembered butchering rabbits in the snow-covered yard or hauling wood on the skidroad from the time she was six. But surely that strength was still there, her score would be seen independent from Granit; Cinna could talk her up with Tyson and the word would spread through District Fourteen and she would be fine, Cinna could _fix_this as long as she scored –

Johanna Mason: _2_.

* * *

><p>"It's not looking good," Finnick said grimly, his mouth against Cinna's ear as he spoke in hushed tones. "The boy – Granit? – he's got a couple Sponsors, but…"<p>

"I figured," assured Cinna softly, his hands running circuits over Finnick's back. "Not with a 2."

"Her interviews, too…" Finnick trailed off. "Is she – you know. Is she _simple_?"

"No," Cinna said steadily. "No. She's the smartest girl in Panem. I don't understand it."

Finnick's brow furrowed and he was silent, pensive, as his hips moved faster until Cinna whimpered once, softly, fingers tightening into Finnick's smooth skin.

"The Games do funny things to people," Finnick said thoughtfully, lips brushing Cinna's cheek gently. An apology. "No one's the same person once they're Reaped. It takes your soul."

"You have a soul," Cinna offered, his eyes closed, fingers smoothing through the soft, wild halo of Finnick's hair.

"It's broken," Finnick said shortly, lightly. "There are pieces of me in District Four, and pieces of me in the Arena, and pieces of me here. And pieces missing." He rested his chin on Cinna's sternum and looked down at him so intently that Cinna opened his eyes, meeting Finnick's solemn, huge-pupiled green gaze. He didn't say a word.

"What?" Cinna asked finally, rubbing a hand over the small of Finnick's back, measuring the dimples at its base with his thumb.

"Nothing," Finnick said, resting his ear over Cinna's chest. "There's nothing."

A little while later, Cinna sighed heavily. "You think there are pieces missing from my sister."

Finnick didn't look up. "I think… I think you should be prepared for her not to be your sister in the Arena. And… I think… that might make it easier. I think – I think your sister's already dead."

Cinna swallowed and closed his eyes. "Stop trying to prove you don't have a soul, Finnick."

"I'm not," Finnick whispered. "I'm just trying to help you keep yours."

Cinna bent to kiss the top of Finnick's head. "I think my sister would say it's already gone, since I chose to be a part of the Games. You've got that over me, Finnick. You didn't want to be a part of this. I did."

Hours later, Cinna woke up to a brush of cold air and the sounds of Finnick moving around in the dark. He rubbed his eyes sleepily, confused, before he realized just why Finnick looked so strange –

"You're wearing clothes," Cinna yawned, thumbing at his eyes.

Finnick looked up from his perch by the icy window, staring out at the bright Capitol night. He wrapped the cuffs of Cinna's plain black sleeves around his hands and nodded. "Sorry. I just – it's so _cold_here. Your shirt looked warm. Well," he laughed wryly, "It looked warmer than my tulle thong."

"Go ahead and wear it," Cinna yawned, rolling over and tucking his face into his elbow.

"I told our Tributes to ally with your sister," Finnick said suddenly, his voice too loud in the night. "I told them not to kill her."

Cinna looked up, taking in Finnick looking so much younger than usual and swimming in Cinna's black shirt.

"Did you talk to Blight?"

Finnick shook his head.

Cinna gnawed at the inside of his cheek. "I guess it doesn't matter. Not when she got a 2."

* * *

><p>During the bloodbath of the Cornucopia, ten Tributes die. The Arena was a forest not unlike Seven, but Seven in a dream world – the Seven of faerytales: day and night lasting only a few hours each, the moon ever-changing as the nights rose and fell, trees all black-fingered curved spindles with sharp spikes like porcupine spines, the floor littered with colored trails that vexed the Tributes who chose to flee the carnage… to follow the path, or to stray?<p>

Johanna Mason curled into a little ball on the ground a few inches from where her plate receded into the ground, covering her ears and eyes until the Cornucopia fell silent. She shook so hard she could barely walk as she delicately plucked a yellow backpack from the cadaver of Girl Three, peered inside, and limped off into the topsy-turvy forest.

Barely into the copse of spired trees, Johanna Mason, the simple Tribute from District Seven, sat down in the leaves near a stump. She dug through the dirt, pulling up the heavy pink stones and blue bricks that built one of the Gamemakers' paths, and arranged them fancifully in a pyramid, smiling and humming softly all the while.

Back at District Fourteen, Cinna Mason stared with a contemplative look on his face.

Finnick wrapped his arms around Cinna's waist and kissed the expanse of skin between Cinna's shoulders. "I'm sorry. I told you… the Games do funny things to people."

"Are the backpacks empty?" Cinna asked.

Finnick shook his head, soft hair tickling the back of Cinna's neck. "No, they have some supplies in them, usually. Sometimes a weapon, if that Three girl got to the horn before she went down."

Cinna nodded and turned in Finnick's embrace. He kissed the younger boy's forehead.

The next morning, Boy Eleven was missing. There had been no cannon in the night, but when the cameras panned over to follow him – he seemed to be hiding in a tree – there was only a squirrel mutt with strange, sharp little fangs. It chattered at the camera and scampered away.

Four of the pink stones were missing from Johanna Mason's pyramid.

She had mysterious bloodstains all down her arm, but had fashioned a tourniquet from the huge, softly silver leaves that drooped from the trees. Johanna Mason, the simple Tribute from District Seven, was still alive.

Four days into the Games, Girl Four desperately needed a tetanus shot, and somewhere in the Capitol, a fat purse needed a night-long dose of Finnick Odair. Cinna ate dinner alone in his small apartment just around the corner from the design school, and kept the volume low on the videoscreen as he dipped bits of eggy bread into simple cabbage soup – something sad and nostalgic of Seven; the Games were doing funny things to him that night.

There had been three more unexplained, cannon-less disappearances. All of the Tributes' tracker signals were still moving around the Arena, but the cameras couldn't seem to find them. Seven Tributes were still alive, Johanna Mason among them. Aside from the tourniquet around her arm – high up near her shoulder on the meat of her tricep – she was sporting a bruise on her cheek and a split lip. But the cameras hadn't indicated her brawling with _any_ fellow Tributes. Claudius had even taken to a steady stream of jokes about _Johanna Mason, the first Tribute from District Seven who runs into trees_. She was a laughingstock. The comedic relief of the 66TH Hunger Games.

No one was laughing when Ajax from District Two, smiling a cheeky, bright smile, sliced Granit Irons in half – lengthwise – with a katana. Simple Johanna Mason cowered beside him, splashed with thick red blood.

She covered her eyes when Ajax turned to her, twirling his katana like a dance-hall cane.

"You wouldn't even count as a kill," he laughed, nudging at Johanna's chin with the toe of his boot. "You don't even count as a _person_."

Johanna didn't say a word.

Ajax chuckled dismissively, sheathing the katana and turning to retreat into the forest as a bright full moon rose overhead. "Criminy, I can feel my Sponsorship going down just standing by you."

When he was gone, Johanna raised her head. She closed Granit's left eye, then turned and crawled the few feet over to close his right eye. Then she looked up, right at the cameras, and unzipped her yellow backpack, tucking some blood-spattered white stones from the gap between Granit's halves into the satchel.

The tea kettle whistled and Cinna started, shaking his head as though to clear his ears of water before he poured himself a cup. He drank in the sweet-scented steam as he waited for the amber liquid to steep.

_Once upon a time, there was a little hamlet tucked along the side of a great woods. It was a happy place, full of mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters, and they were all woodcutters. Every family had enough to eat because the hamlet had built good, bright paths through the wood, and on these paths people could travel, and with them grains and wool and goats and cattle, back to the village._

Then one day, a horrible witch and her two horrible fat children – a boy and a girl – moved into a house outside the village, set far away from the paths. It was a strange house, high in the hair on tall animal legs. Every day, the fat children would roll off the porch and come down to the village to steal from the happy people. They never walked on the paths, and the woods were endlessly dark and deep and full of hiding places for the wicked children, so there was no way the villagers knew to stop them.

One day, the horrible witch's children stole a family's very last goat. The family had their own children, a brother and a sister, who were so angry that they took up their axes and hacked the witch's children to pieces. When they realized what they had done, they were frightened and hid the pieces in the woods, far away from the path.

When night fell, the witch realized that her children had not returned home. This would not have bothered her much, because she had no love in her heart, but without her children, she had no one to bring her food stolen from the village, and she was very angry. She flew off her porch and wandered the woods, far off the path, until she found the pieces of her children. She decided to punish the happy village for killing her children and depriving her of goods.

She brought the pieces back to her house in the forest and used her terrible magic to reassemble their bodies. But their legs would not work. So she built her house into a fortress that blocked off the path completely, and took those animal legs and attached them to her children, and they were wolf-muttations.

The next night, when the villagers were celebrating the first day that they had not had thievery, she sent the wolf-muttations through the forest. When they reached the hamlet, they killed the brother and sister who had killed them, and they told the villagers that from then on, they could only get grains and wool and goats and cattle by sending one boy and one girl every month to the fortress. If they could survive the forest and its dangers, they could bring back riches for the village.

And so it went for many years after: month after month, a boy and a girl were sent into the forest to bring staples back to the village, and month after month, the witch had her big, bad, wolf-muttations kill them all. The once-happy hamlet grew mean and cold, and the people all began to starve. This made them turn against each other, and delight in sending the others' children off to the woods.

Then, one full moon, it was the occasion for the smartest, prettiest girl in the hamlet to be sent to the woods. She was well-loved by her family, who had made her a bright red cloak to wear on cold winter nights. It suited her so nicely that everyone only called her Little Red Cloak. It was a very cold night, this full moon, and she put on her red cloak to stay warm.

'Remember, dear Little Red Cloak,' said her mother, fastening the cloak beneath the girl's chin, 'Do not stray from the path. That is your best chance to make it to the castle and bring us back some grain.'

And she handed her daughter a little basket.

'Don't worry about me, mama,' said Little Red Cloak. 'I'll come back.'

"Good girl, Hannie," Cinna whispered into the pure velvet-dark silence of his own little apartment, the only light coming from his sister's face reflecting on the little videoscreen humming softly on the wall.

* * *

><p>Three hours later, something heavy slammed, just once, against Cinna's front door and made him jerk awake on the sofa, flailing for the remote control to switch off the videoscreen.<p>

"Cinna," called a pitiful little voice outside the door. "Cinna – "

He sat up and winced at the crick in his neck, rolling his shoulders. "I'm coming."

Cinna opened the door and Portia, her black hair all askew and limp with grease, collapsed into his arms.

"I can't do this," she whispered, sounding like her voice had broken apart somewhere inside her chest and only the smallest shards were able to make it out into the air. "Cinna, I can't do this. Those are – I met those kids, I'm – I can't do this."

Cinna held her up and kicked the door shut before half-dragging her over to the little sofa. "Sit."

Portia sat, her head in her hands, digging her thumbs into her temples. Cinna knelt and started to unlace her high, winged, glass-and-chrome boots.

"I didn't realize what it meant when I told him – I told him I hoped he won," Portia whispered, resting her pale forehead against her thin knees. "I didn't know what that meant."

Cinna rubbed the back of her calf. "You couldn't know. You were born in the Capitol." He brushed her limp bangs back from her forehead. "Portia, it's not your fault."

"It is, Cinna. It's all of our faults." She breathed out shakily and Cinna lifted one of her hands, gently pressing rolling circles into the fleshy, Capitol-smooth muscle between her thumb and index finger. "I have such a headache."

"I know," Cinna said, still massaging her hand. "I've had a headache for weeks."

They were silent for a long time. Cinna kissed Portia's fingers.

"I don't know how you let him touch you," she whispered. "Knowing what he's done."

Cinna breathed in deep through his nose and kissed her hand again. "Worse has been done to him."

"Your sister is in there," Portia said, turning her head to look at Cinna with one lashless eye. "Do you want her to win?"

_So Little Red Cloak set off for the forest with her basket. The boy being sent to the castle stuck to the path and tried to convince Little Red Cloak to follow alongside him, but she smiled and refused, saying that she preferred to walk alone._

Little Red Cloak stepped off the path.

Cinna swallowed.

He thought about Finnick, fifteen years old and slamming back drinks in District Fourteen. He thought about Ajax slicing Granit Irons in half. He thought of Johanna piling small rocks by that ash stump, and how five Tributes had gone missing between last night's and tonight's ending montages.

"No," Cinna whispered, his lips barely resting on Portia's skin. "I don't want her to win. But I don't want to watch her to lose." He laughed hollowly. "I'm stuck. We're all stuck."

The next day, Finnick's red light was on when Cinna arrived at District Fourteen, exhausted and skirting the edge of rage from staying awake with hysterical Portia all night. He forced her to skip her design team meetings in the morning. She didn't need to spend the day drawing gladiatorial victory tour outfits for Ajax to wear as he lorded over the parents of his victims. Instead, Cinna took Portia to breakfast, sat her at the only table _not_facing a videoscreen, and spent more than he could afford on a student's stipend to let her order whatever she wanted.

"You're a good date," Portia laughed sadly, pushing a forkful of runny eggs with sweet vanilla hollandaise across her plate. "Better than Orlando. Just so you know."

"I don't doubt that," Cinna said, winking. He nibbled at a slice of toast, wondering why Capitol bread had to be so white and fluffy and flavorless. He missed the heavy, dark, eggy black bread of District Seven. "I'm very polite, being a District boy. Or so I've been told."

"Ugh, did Finnick tell you that?" Portia wrinkled her nose. "What a line."

"It's not a line," argued Cinna. "I am very polite. Note that I stayed awake with you all night, did not try any funny business, and will still be paying for your very expensive breakfast."

Portia dipped a sausage into her egg yolk. "True. But considering I think it'd be all over the headlines if Finnick Odair was spotted out for breakfast with a lowly design student, I would guess that his idea of your manners differs from mine." She held up a dismissive hand. "And I _don't need to know_."

Cinna grinned and delicately popped a piece of toast in his mouth. "Suit yourself."

When Cinna finally left Portia off on her own doorstep, he headed straight for District Fourteen. He'd been awake for the last forty hours, but Portia's words had struck a chord –

Exactly how was he any more polite than anyone else who Finnick took behind those doors? (Aside from being the only one who wanted to cuddle, which still made Cinna blush to think of it.)

He sat at the ice bar, waiting for Finnick's red light to click off, drinking quiet, cheap blue drinks.

An hour passed. Johanna stayed alive.

Then two. The Games raged on in the background; a herd of snow-white leonine muttations taking down three Tributes in the blink of an eye. Cinna clenched the edge of the ice bar so tightly that his skin began to feel the sharp burn of freezing: three of the mutts had turned on Johanna and were stalking towards her, silent paws on the pink stone path.

Johanna opened her hands and reached out, letting the mutts smell her. Her long hair floated in the breeze. Her face was calm and composed.

One of the mutts licked her fingers with its horrible black tongue. Another nudged at her muddy knee.

Johanna Mason stayed alive.

_She wandered through the forest, seeing tooth-edged beech trees; soft, thick, carpet moss; tall, bushy spoonwood trees like upside-down pyramids; little red weasels, white-tailed deer, tiny striped chipmunks; and so many lovely flowers._

'Oh,' said Little Red Cloak loudly into the woods, 'All of these creatures are just so lovely!'

And the wolf-muttations, hearing her, stepped out from the shade of a tree.

'My, my,' said the wolf-muttations, 'What a little girl to be traversing the woods alone. And what a lovely bright red cloak.'

'Thank you,' said Little Red Cloak, staring up at the hideous beasts. 'I'm on my way to get grain from the witch at the castle.'

A Golden Trident slid its way down the bar and Cinna looked up. Tyson, with his bright blue face and serious eyes, inclined his head towards Finnick's door.

"He's waiting for you, sugar," Tyson whispered, barely moving his blue lips. "You ought to head right in. Be quick at the door, don't let anyone see him."

"Why?" Cinna asked, his heart pounding in his chest.

Tyson reached across the bar and slipped the two shots into Cinna's glass. "You'll see for yourself."

Cinna took the ice glass and made a beeline across the dance floor, shouldering past gyrating bodies in the thick of the crowd and squeezing past the factory line of fucking that lined the walls. He pressed the button next to Finnick's door.

"It's me," he hissed.

The lock clicked and Cinna slipped through the door.

He tripped over a short, distractedly-dressed man in thick spectacles, adjusting something with wires poking out from the baseboards.

"Oh!" cried the bespectacled man, brushing off Cinna's pant legs as he pushed himself up. "So sorry! I didn't realize the – I should have realized that buzzer was the doorbell, I'm just distracted, so sorry."

"Right," Cinna said, blinking at him. "What are you – "

"Mags stepped in," croaked Finnick's voice from the sofa. He sounded rough, like he'd eaten sandpaper. "That's – "

"Don't _talk_, Finnick, you'll make it worse," the man said sharply. He wiped his hand off on his chest and stuck it out for Cinna to shake. "I'm Beetee. I'm – "

"The Victor of the 55TH Hunger Games and the lead mentor for District Three," Cinna finished. "I know, I'm in – "

"The design school, yes! Mags told me you did some wonderful braidwork for the Interview costumes," Beetee said graciously, smiling. "Now sit, sit, tend to Finnick."

Cinna crossed around to the black sofa and stopped short, almost tripping again – this time over his own feet.

Finnick's face and neck looked like ground meat. His lip was bloody and swollen, hanging like lichen, and purple, scabbed-over rings rounded his wrists and ankles. His head was propped on what at first blush looked like a black-and-brown leather pillow, but was _actually_Mags, wearing her usual tunic. She ran her gnarled hands gently through Finnick's greasy hair.

"What happened?" Cinna breathed, kneeling by Finnick's side. Heavy red lines licked up Finnick's sides from his back.

"Farra needed a Sponsor," Finnick croaked. "Fast."

Cinna looked up at Mags. "You _let_him go do this?"

Mags grumbled something indignant and long-drawn out, and spit over her shoulder.

"She told me not to," Finnick translated wryly. He took a deep breath and winced. "Wish I'd listened."

Mags grumbled something else and tugged lightly at his hair.

Finnick's good eye brightened in what should have been a smile. "I know."

"Who – what – and what is he – " Cinna pointed to Beetee, fiddling with wires on the floor.

"I am creating a feedback loop," Beetee offered from the floor, taping off a little bundle of black wire. "So that Finnick can have some _privacy_and dignity once in a while." He looked up at Cinna and his glasses slipped down his nose. "From what I understand, you'll benefit from that, too."

Cinna flushed and looked back to the mess of Finnick's face. "Who did this to you?"

Finnick opened his mouth to answer and dissolved in a coughing spell.

Mags reached down for Cinna and lifted his chin so he was staring into her murky, whip-smart eyes.

"Thiebaud Brabantio," she said. She pronounced it strangely, like she did everything, like 'Theobald.'

On the huge videoscreen on the wall, Johanna dove behind a boulder, slipping into a crevasse in the stone walls of the Arena, fleeing the fierce melee combat of Ajax and his cronies. Claudius Templesmith and Couric Ombudsman cackled in the split-screen about silly, simple Johanna Mason, running head-first into rocks next. Cinna's hands shook as he stared, his eyes flicking from Johanna's bright Games uniform to Finnick's wrecked face to Mags' serious, milky eyes and the floating, lingering sound of his own mentor's name on her lips. Thiebald Brabantio did this. Annika Templesmith did this. The Capitol did this. _Panem did this_.

Cinna swallowed. "What can I do?"

Beetee's head popped up from behind the sofa. His collar was cockeyed, but his eyes were bright. "Ah… now there's a good question."

_The wolf-muttations smiled with many teeth. 'Aren't you a bit young and a bit small? Don't you know you should never leave the path?'_

'Oh, yes,' said Little Red Cloak. 'But I left the path because I wanted to meet you. I have something for you in my basket.'

'Is it cake?' asked one of the wolf-muttations.

'Better,' said Little Red Cloak.

'Is it cookies?' asked the first's brother.

'Better,' said Little Red Cloak.

'What could it be?' cried the wolf-muttations.

Little Red Cloak smiled and pulled back the cloth in her basket. 'It's the best treat we have in the village!'

* * *

><p>Finnick's face healed – the magic of Remake; Mags insisted that Cinna facilitate, even though he didn't specialize in prep.<p>

More snow-white leonine muttations ate Tributes in the topsy-turvy forest Arena. Otherwise, they followed Johanna Mason like a ghostly, fanged Honor guard.

And so Johanna Mason stayed alive.

_And she took up her axe and hacked the wolf-muttations to pieces, filling their bodies with heavy stones and burying them beneath the moss in the forest floor. Being quite sure they were dead, Little Red Cloak ran as fast as she could to the castle. She climbed the high walls and swung in through the window. Upon entering the castle, all she could see was a great lace curtain._

'Hello?' called Little Red Cloak. 'I've come to collect grain for the village.'

'Come along inside, dear,' called the witch behind the curtain. 'I keep all of the goodies in here where I can guard them.'

So Little Red Cloak pulled back the lace and there, in a great brass bed, lay the witch. On the other side of the mattress as wide as a redwood trunk were huge barrels of grain, cows and pigs and goats tethered to poles, and skeins and skeins of bright-colored cloth. The witch herself lay almost buried in blankets. Little Red Cloak could just barely see her face, and gripped her basket tighter.

'My,' she said, 'What big eyes you have, madam.'

'The better to watch for thieves and murderers like the children who killed my own, my dear,' said the witch.

* * *

><p>With only five Tributes left alive, the design students – and most of the Capitol – were watching the Games around the clock. Cinna watched the Games over breakfast, eggy bread and too-bitter coffee; he watched the Games in class, rubbing Portia's hands and watching her slowly lose control; he watched the Games with Finnick at night, inhaling pink powder to stay awake.<p>

Somehow, Johanna stayed alive.

After three harrowing days of footage – eight cycles of false day and false night in the Arena – Ajax and his final cohorts, two girls he'd convinced to love him and a boy who clearly thought he could defeat Ajax in the finale, fell asleep.

_'My,' said Little Red Cloak, beginning to edge around the big brass bed towards the grain, 'What big hands you have.'_

'The better to keep hold of my goodies, my dear,' said the witch.

Johanna Mason stood, straight and proud, and whispered silently through the trees. A few yards away from their fire, she unzipped her backpack and emptied it, pink stone by blue brick by white stone, and took a hatchet from its depths.

Her eyes blazed in the lying night as she beheaded both girls faster than the time it took for Ajax and the other boy to wake. The boy was dead before he spoke.

"What the hell?" Ajax stuttered, struggling against his own confusion to sit up. "How are you still alive?"

"You were right," Johanna sang, sing-song, her hatchet blade tracing over the hollow of Ajax's neck. "I'm not a person." She knelt on his chest, holding him to the ground. The cameras zoomed in to her lips as she leaned in and whispered in Ajax's ear as she brought the hatchet down. "I'm the big bad wolf."

_Little Red Cloak opened her basket and carefully scooped a portion of grain. 'My,' she commented, 'What big teeth you have.'_

'The better to eat you with, my dear,' cackled the witch, throwing off the covers – for she herself was a wolf-muttation, too, but Little Red Cloak was ready with her axe.

There was a great scuffle, but Little Red Cloak was fortunate to be a woodcutter and knew well how to swing her axe to bring down the witch-wolf without harming any of the precious grain or wool or goats or cattle. When the big, bad witch-wolf was dead, Little Red Cloak fashioned the big brass bed into a sledge and piled it high with grain and skeins of cloth, and urged the goats and pigs and cows on to follow her along the path back into the village.

Ajax's cannon sounded and Johanna stood, dropping the hatchet in the dirt. She blithely adjusted the silvery-white leaves that wrapped a tourniquet around her arm. She brushed the mud from her knees.

Johanna Mason snapped her fingers, and a herd of white, leonine muttations thundered out from the thicket of lush trees, descending on the orgy of human flesh her hatchet left for them.

She straightened her uniform top and tossed her long hair behind her shoulders impatiently. It was the same look she'd worn when Cinna boarded the Capitol train.

"C'mon then," she called up to the sky, "Announce it. The Victor of the 66TH Hunger Games. Johanna Mason. District Seven."

Finnick turned to look at Cinna in shock. "She won."

_'Mother!' Little Red Cloak cried when she made it home, 'I have killed the witch! We're free of her cruelty now!'_

Cinna nodded. The hovercraft lowered over the twirling-gnarled trees and his stomach lurched: they always stayed far away from the Arena itself, high in the sky like a reflective beacon of Capitol might. A trophy.

They weren't supposed to send the dirt up in gusts around the Victor's feet.

Seneca Crane was not supposed to descend from the shining silver ladder. Johanna Mason measured his every step with shrewd eyes.

"Where are the bodies?" Seneca Crane asked. His voice was stolid and cold but his face was locked in the eternal Capitol smile.

Johanna blinked, low and slow. "I cut the trackers out for a reason." Her lips twitched. "You aren't going to find them and make those bodies go away. You can't pretend those Tributes never existed. They'll be here, hidden somewhere you won't ever find."

Seneca Crane's eyes fluttered in politely contained malice. "Where did you put the trackers?"

Johanna's mouth almost smiled. "Check the bellies of your muttations. Tributes aren't the only things that starve in the Arena."

Seneca Crane's nostrils flared.

Then he clapped Johanna on the back and beamed out to the cameras, his lizard-green eyes dancing. "Ladies and gentlemen… The Victor of the 66TH Hunger Games… Johanna Mason of District Seven!"

_ The village rejoiced soundly that night and reveled in their new riches. There was a great roasted pig and sweet apples and loaves upon loaves of black bread._

"Beetee!" The screws turned. Finnick turned to Cinna. His face was ashen. "They aren't going to like that. Not at all. Cinna, you've seen what happens when they get mad." He clutched Cinna's forearms. "Stay here. Stay with me. If you're with me, they can't hurt you without hurting me and they – they like to keep me." His eyes narrowed. "Do you know where the bodies are?"

Cinna looked at the last flickering credits of the Arena: the panorama of curlicue trees and multicolored candy pathways and beyond, the shimmer of the dam, water rushing in icy currents through the diversion tunnels to cascade into the Capitol reservoir below.

He swallowed. "No."

Finnick tightened his hold on Cinna's wrists. "Please don't go home tonight. Please. Something bad is going to happen."

"Finnick – "

"Please!" Finnick hissed. "Cinna, all I did was _not die_, and my parents lost their boat to 'an unexplained fire.' That's the only thing we had, the only way we could support ourselves – I can't even send money from _this_back to them because I never see it. But your sister – she did something just as bad Haymitch. And Beetee told you what they did to him." His green eyes were young and wet and afraid. "Don't. Leave. Here. Tonight."

Cinna wrapped his arms around Finnick's shoulders and pulled him in close, hugging him tight. "Okay. Alright, I'll stay here."

_But slowly and surely, the stores of food ran out. Little Red Cloak asked her mother, 'But why are people not traveling the paths to bring back the food?'_

'The witch's castle is still blocking the way,' said her mother. 'The woods surrounding it are dark and deep, and the witch built her castle over the only path. The men are afraid to disturb the woods there, because we don't know where the wolf-muttations are hiding. We can't disturb their bones or they might come to eat us.'

'I know where they are! Let us go burn down her castle so we may open up the path once again!' cried Little Red Cloak.

The next morning, when Cinna arrived at the design school, still wearing yesterday's clothes – a cardinal sin on most days, but after the finale of the Games, he wasn't the only one – Thiebaud Brabantio himself was waiting for Cinna just inside the studio doors.

"Mr. Mason?" he asked, a maudlin expression of sympathy creasing his brow. He reached out with his hamlike white hands and gripped Cinna's slender fingers. "I have heard excellent things about you from Hemant… I am so dreadfully sorry that our first meeting need be under these circumstances."

"Sir?" Cinna asked, his skin crawling.

Cauliflower-collagen lips shellacked in teal pulled back from Brabantio's teeth. Each tooth was veneered in pearl. "Mr. Mason, there's been an accident in District Seven. The Main Skid is suffering a forest fire. Your family's homestead burned down last night." His teeth glistened. "There were no survivors."

_ Her mother looked sad, despite the great riches her clever daughter had brought home. 'Dear Little Red Cloak, if we burn down the castle, we take the forest with it.'_

Cinna wobbled a nod. "It's – not forest fire season. Sir. It's not dry this time of year."

Brabantio's smile did not fall. "That's right. _It's hurricane season._You're lucky that you didn't leave family behind in Four. I hear lost trawlers are never found."

Cinna's jaw clenched. "I understand, sir."

Brabantio squeezed Cinna's hands. "You have quite an eye, Cinna Mason. Did you notice anything in this year's Games that the average viewer might have missed that could be incorporated into next year's design schema?"

Cinna did not waver. Did not blink. Did not loosen his grip. "The stones of the path…"

"Yes?"

"The shades of pink were ever-so-slightly mismatched. Were they manmade or mined?"

Brabantio dropped his hands. "Manmade. I'll pass your criticism along to Seneca Crane."

Cinna's hands were sweaty and shaking. He sorely wanted to wash Brabantio's slime from his skin. "I appreciate it. If you don't mind, sir, if it's no trouble – I have class…" he gestured towards the door of the studio, where Portia was waiting for him with her fingernails in her teeth.

Brabantio smiled again. "Yes, of course. You have an eye, Cinna Mason. We won't forget that."

* * *

><p>The design students gave the 66TH Victor a wide berth at the Closing Ceremonies party. Johanna stood off to the side of the dance floor, back straight as a board, resplendent in her gown: long, flowing, white, dipped in red like the bloody snow witch who haunted that winterland in a story that Cinna remembered half-making up as he went along, drawing it for her when she was on the cusp of too-old-for-faerytales.<p>

A long stole of white fur wrapped her shoulders.

Cinna's stomach twisted.

"Go," Portia urged softly, rubbing his back. "You need each other now."

Cinna nodded and wiped his hands on the sides of his pressed black trousers.

"Approach on her right, where she can see you," Finnick whispered, whirling past him on the pretense of picking up another plate of prawnoustines and another bright orange emetic cocktail. "Never approach a Victor from behind."

Cinna nodded absently and turned away. He heard Finnick swirl back to the party, his most flirtatious Capitol self for the festivities. He was wearing a snow-white chiffon toga; little silver briefs and curls silver and pearl body paint climbing his torso beneath the sheer fabric. If the theme of the evening was blood and snow, then Finnick was a glacier crashing into the sea.

Cinna crossed the dance floor to Johanna. He approached from her right, reaching out to touch her arm, but thought better of it and pulled back.

"Hannie," he said softly.

"Johanna," she corrected. Then she glanced over and inhaled sharply. "Cinna."

He nodded. "Hi."

She looked straight ahead to the gilded wall. "I killed our family."

"No," Cinna breathed, reaching out to touch her elbow. "Hannie, you didn't. It wasn't – " He lowered his voice. "It's what they do to Victors. If you want to move here and live with me, I can make space – "

"No," Johanna said steadily, shaking her head. "I have to go back to Seven. I don't belong here, Cinna, any more than you felt like you belonged there. And – " She blinked and looked skyward, her jaw set. "I made you feel like you had to move here just to be happy." A muscle in her jaw ticked. Her long hair had been treated with something by her prep team and it shone like black ice. "But I kept your drawings… More kindling, in the end."

"I think it's my fault you were Reaped," Cinna whispered.

Johanna's nostrils flared and her head whipped around to stare at Cinna. Her eyes flashed. "What do you mean, it's your fault? It's a lottery."

"You were Reaped to punish me for moving here to be happy," Cinna said, looking across the room to where Finnick was laughing raucously at one of Caesar Flickerman's jokes. "So… you didn't kill our family, Hannie. I think… I did."

"_Did you know_?" Johanna hissed, her hands curled tight. "_When you did whatever you did – did you know that they would pick me_? Is that why… were you trying to get us all back for how you felt growing up?"

"No!" Cinna cried, then checked hastily over his shoulder. "_No_, Johanna. I had no idea – "

"Yes, you did," Johanna said flatly. "You knew what they do here from the minute Rosamine died. You knew and you didn't care and you came here anyway and you – do what you do."

"They do it Seven, too," Cinna hissed back. "That's where they killed Miss Honey. And that's where they beat Yew, and where Granit lost his fingers, and where everyone stops talking. Do you know – that's not how it is, everywhere else? People don't just stop talking like that, to their own families. _That isn't right either, Johanna_."

"I said I was sorry for that," Johanna said stiffly. "You haven't said you're sorry that our whole family is dead."

Cinna shook his head. "I am, Johanna. And I'm going to fix it."

"This isn't a ferning faerytale, Cinna," Johanna said, turning away.

Cinna took a deep, cold breath and looked across the dance hall. "You should talk to Finnick Odair. Blight can get you a meeting."

"I don't think getting laid is really going to fix this," Johanna said dryly.

Cinna suppressed a small smile. "He's good for other things, too. They have good faerytales in District Four. But they call them 'myths' there. Ask Finnick to tell you about Hercules and the hide of the Nemean Lion." Cinna touched her arm, fingering the snow-white fur that draped her shoulders. "I'm going to fix it, Johanna. I'm going to fix everything."

Johanna blinked and her eyes slid away from him, back to the vacant wall, and Cinna turned to go. Portia was waiting for him across the room, already holding his coat.

"Cinna," Johanna called, softly enough that it could have been an accident.

He turned, hope and guilt warring in his chest.

Johanna turned her head just enough that he could see her profile. She had the same nose as she ever had, that bump across it like she'd been hit even though she hadn't. When she was the littlest kid, she would bang her fingers against Cinna's nose and look cross, like she was angry she couldn't put his face on instead of wearing hers.

"This is how faerytales end, isn't it." It wasn't a question. "When brothers and sisters step off the path."

Cinna met her gaze just long enough to nod once, curtly, before letting Portia wrap his coat around his shoulders. He left Johanna standing in the corner of the ball room, Finnick waltzing with Annika Templesmith nearby.

_ So Little Red Cloak was sent to live in the witch's castle and parcel out the grain and wool and goats and cattle for her villagers, and though now the woods were safe and the villagers well-fed and happy once more, Little Red Cloak's life was never the same, for she knew where the wolf-muttations were buried, and she had been left all alone._

* * *

><p>Finnick Odair's mother disappeared with a crabbing trawler while he was at home for the 67TH Hunger Games.<p>

Johanna Mason cut off her hair and always wore red. She moved back to District Seven and lived amongst the rubble of the Main Skid, high on a hill in the Victor's Village: just Johanna and Blight.

When Cinna watched the 70TH Reaping episode – holed up in his small apartment, Portia curled into his side without any makeup, shredding a slice of black bread between her fingers – his heart broke a little. As much as a heart could still be broken in Panem.

The look on Finnick Odair's face when Alamela Marple called the name of the girl Tribute, a pretty, waifish brunette with flyaway hair in the breeze, spelled every feeling Cinna had ever had for Finnick, clear enough that the letters _L-O-V-E_might as well have been written across Finnick's face.

Cinna was assigned to Four again that year for the first time since Johanna's Games. Portia gave up her spot on Brabantio's team for One and joined Cinna and Finnick and Mags. They dressed Annie and her hulking Career partner in dark, dripping tendrils of seaweed and tentacles; nowhere near beautiful or light or sunshiney, Annie Cresta and her partner were monsters of the deep, black-eyed and awesome.

Exactly the sort of monster Finnick had told Cinna about years ago on a black sofa surrounded by ice when he told Cinna the myth of Perseus, the only hero ever to live happily ever after.

Annie Cresta treaded water for three and a half days before the hovercraft pulled her from the water.

Cinna and Finnick were tangled naked and writhing on that old black sofa – Cinna's teeth tearing at the armrest and the sofa legs skittering hard across the floor, back and forth – when the last cannon sounded and Annie slipped beneath the surface for her third and final time before the silver ladder scooped her up.

Cinna did not see Johanna in person until the 73RD Hunger Games. Granit Irons' little sister trembled her way into the Capitol, shaking like a leaf, and Johanna chose to Mentor for the first time. Cinna begged his way onto the District Seven prep team. He prepared notes for all the things he wanted to say and practiced his words on Portia first.

But Johanna Mason did not say a word to her designers or prep team. Cinna settled for leaving her a little hand-sewn book of faerytales, at least as far as he could remember them from so many years ago. He drew Cinderella, hiding her bloody feet; Little Red Cloak, resplendent on her sleigh of goods; The Little Landvættir, with her collection of forks and clocks and doodads, trading her voice for human legs to run on. He left it folded gently within the thick sleeves of Johanna's red coat on his way home the night before the Opening Ceremonies.

Cinna woke the next morning to a loaf of black bread he had not baked tucked against his doorjamb, and he ate it slowly, bit by bit, over the course of those Games.

It tasted like faerytales and icy wind whipping around a one-room schoolhouse, and the smell of hasenpfeffer drifting over the porch of a log cabin.

* * *

><p>When his phone rang and Haymitch said, <em>She's the one,<em>Cinna said, "I already know."

He could have delegated the dress to his assistants, but he was always the best at piecework and he wanted to make this dress with his own hands. Finnick had his trident. Johanna had a hatchet. Cinna had a delicate, fine-gauge needle and eleven thousand little gemstones: red and yellow and white with bits of blue.

Miss Honey, whose face Cinna had forgotten, let Cinna read books of poetry that were forbidden. He lost most of the words to a bonfire when she was taken by the hanging tree. But he remembered tongues of flame and the sanctity of spirit, and that is what he would pass on to Katniss Everdeen.

He had watched her Volunteer for her little sister, Caesar Flickerman and Claudius Templesmith chattering about the rarity of volunteer Tributes from the lower Districts, as he sat beside Portia at Capital, in the second terrace with the other Head Stylists. When Katniss Everdeen Volunteered in the place of her family, she _saved_her family; something Cinna had failed, something Johanna had failed, something Finnick had failed, something Haymitch had failed.

So many Victors had been set on fire by the Capitol for failing to protect their families. But this time, the first one to succeed was going to burn Panem to the ground.

Before they'd even finished the anthem, back at Capital, Cinna had picked up his pencils and begun to sketch.

* * *

><p>"A mockingjay?" asked Prudence Kirkan, examining the little gold pin in the Token Review office. She pushed her winged spectacles up her nose and peered thoughtfully at Cinna. "Why a mockingjay?"<p>

Cinna smiled pleasantly. "You would have to ask Katniss. Although she's so young, I'm sure she has no idea what sort of bird it could be. She's a young girl… she probably just thinks it's pretty."

"Hmm," sniffed Prudence. "She could blind someone with the pin."

Cinna laughed richly. "Really, Prudence, that's just splitting hairs. What harm could a little gold bird do?"

* * *

><p>They'd come home. <em>They'd come home<em>, both of them, Katniss _and_Peeta and it was perfect and powerful and everyone felt it, in every District, but none more than Cinna. Katniss was alive, and so was her family. He'd finally gotten to see Portia bring back a Tribute who was good, and kind, and who didn't make her cry at night. One that she was truly proud of.

The 'satin shortage' was his first sign that everything was really working. The shops on the couture row had to postpone all commissions until a suitable replacement was found – which was how Cinna ended up pioneering the foam rubber skirt craze – and the design school was in utter disarray as their fall premiere collection show was cancelled altogether.

There could be no new hires for the 75TH Hunger Games.

All District styling and prep teams would remain as they had been for the previous year. Cinna, Portia, and their colorful birds were safe and intact.

When the design school gala had no prawnoustines or turtle soup or huge, gleaming swordfish, Cinna called Finnick – urgent and hushed – to make sure that he and Annie and Mags were safe. Finnick promised they were, although the riots in the streets scared Annie badly and Mags' had to chase angry marchers off her lawn with a paddle. Cinna laughed with him as Finnick described hunched little Mags running after huge, overexcitable fishermen, waving an oar and yelling obscenities.

"It's really happening," Cinna whispered after, just before the screws turned and he had to hang up the phone.

"We did it," Finnick agreed. "It was all you, Cinna. Really. I feel like – you know, nothing can go wrong now, you know? I know you didn't save your family, and I know things are bad with Johanna and everything, but… we're all safe now, and it's because of you. Everything that happens now, it's because of you."

Cinna nodded, twisting his fingers into a stray thread on his tablecloth. "I miss you."

Finnick laughed softly through his nose. "I miss you, too."

"I'm going out to Twelve tomorrow to fit Katniss for those wedding dresses," Cinna said, looking out the window at the woolly gray sky. "I'll tell Haymitch you say hello."

"Don't," Finnick said cheerfully. "I'll tell the ugly bastard hello myself. But you can tell him what's going on here. Make sure you really act out the Mags bit. I want to imagine you waving an oar at him." Finnick snorted.

Cinna paused. "You really think that I did something right?"

"It's all you," Finnick repeated. "I've gotta go, I haven't heard Annie in a while. I wanna make sure she's just asleep."

"Yeah, of course," Cinna said. "Go."

"Things are happening, and they're all because of you… that's amazing. You did good, Cinna," Finnick said fiercely.

_And then they are all Reaped._

* * *

><p>"Cinna…"<p>

"You don't have to stay on with me," Cinna said softly, pressing his lips to Portia's forehead. "I can't ask you to do that."

Portia took in a deep breath and held it a few seconds before exhaling. "They will kill you, Cinna. You know they will."

Cinna nodded. "That's alright." He smiled. "What do you think of the dress?"

Portia looked at the designs and blueprints and swatches spread over his drafting table. White feathers, black feathers. And pearls: everywhere pearls.

Her eyes filled with tears. "It's the most beautiful, most reckless dress I've ever seen."

* * *

><p>"Wish I'd gotten Cinna," Johanna said. She had to keep moving so they didn't hear any genuineness in her voice. Of everything the Victor Johanna Mason could be said to be, 'genuine' could not. She swallowed. "You look fantastic."<p>

* * *

><p>"It's been a long time."<p>

Finnick's words could mean a hundred things – he'd taken up poetry at twenty, when he was transitioning off drugs for Annie, and his words tended to be double-edged forever after. That was alright: it was to be expected of a slave, and necessary for a freedom fighter.

It had been a long time since he'd met Cinna in this same club.

It had been a long time since Cinna had come to him _this_way, soft-eyed and wanting.

It had been a long time since Panem was free.

Cinna smiled and pushed a hand through his short, dark hair. "It has." He paused. "I shouldn't have come here… I know you have Annie."

Finnick cupped his palm over the side of Cinna's face. "She knows about you. She doesn't really understand what I _do_here, but she understands… you. What you've always been to me here."

Cinna nodded.

Finnick smiled. "We'll see each other again, Cinna. It'll all be over soon and I'll see you in Thirteen. And after – After, I think you'd love Four." He twined his fingers through Cinna's. "Come to Four. You'd love Annie. She smiles whenever I mention you and she doesn't even know you. But you'd love each other, too." He kissed Cinna's cheek. "Say you'll come to Four."

Cinna took a deep breath. "I have to show you something."

Finnick tightened his fingers. "Say you'll come to Four."

"Finnick – "

"No," Finnick whispered fiercely. "Say you'll come to Four. Say we're both getting through this and you'll come to Four to be with me and Annie. Cinna. Please."

Cinna swallowed. "I'll come to Four, Finnick. We'll see each other every day again, like – before. And you can teach me how to swim. And I'll even try eating a live squid for you."

Finnick laughed wetly. "_They aren't still alive_."

Cinna smiled. He squeezed Finnick's fingers. "And I will love you until I die." His smile turned sad in the slightest downturn of his lips. "I have to show you something."

Finnick nodded. "Okay."

Cinna reached into his bag and pulled out the battered old sketchbook: the drawings of the wedding gown for Katniss; detailed plans for its transformation. The draped sleeves of a cloak for Johanna. Pearls for Four, for Finnick, for Annie Cresta. Feathers for Katniss and Peeta and Rue.

Fire for Panem.

Finnick covered his mouth absently with shaking fingers. "Cinna – you can't – I thought it was going to be like last year, just the pin. Or… gold. A gold gown." He looked up and his eyes were fifteen years old again, scared and wide and fierce. "Cinna, they will kill you." Finnick shook his head. "I won't be able to save Katniss and I won't be able to save you."

Cinna gently wrapped his hand around Finnick's wrist and brought it away from his mouth. He smiled encouragingly. "You'll save her. You'll save everyone, Finnick. That's not my part. And I can't – I can't just sit here alone, pretending to smile and be okay, while you and Johanna and Katniss are in there. I'm - _angry_, Finnick. I'm so angry." He squeezed Finnick's hand. "And I'm not going to hide it anymore."

Finnick's eyes welled up. "You know, it doesn't mean as much to say you'll love someone 'til you die if you have a day left."

Cinna folded his arms around Finnick's shoulders, pulling him in close.

"Finnick Odair," he murmured. "It means that I can say with absolute clarity that you were the love of my life." He pulled back just enough to look Finnick in the eye. "And I just wanted to finally tell you."

Finnick sniffed and hugged Cinna so tightly it was hard to breathe. "I think the only reason I'm even able to love Annie is because of you. You're the only other person who has ever even tried to love me. And you respected me when I didn't deserve respect – "

"You always deserved it," Cinna whispered.

Finnick kissed him, simple and sweet and impermanent. "You _caused_the love in my life, Cinna Mason." He kissed him again, teeth just barely pulling at his lower lip. "And I do love you. I chose you, and the whole world is better for it."

"Is it?" Cinna asked. "A lot of people have been hurt because of me loving you."

Johanna. Finnick's mother. The Mason family, all wiped out. Annie Cresta gone mad.

Finnick let go of Cinna and picked up the drawing of Katniss' gown. "Maybe they have," Finnick said, "But there aren't a lot of people who can say they set a whole country on fire for each other." He smirked. "Really, just us and Peeta. Poor kid."

"She'll learn how to love him back," Cinna said confidently. "You and Annie can show her someday what it's like. You can cause the love in _her_life. I hope you do."

Backstage at the interviews, Cinna only caught the flash of pain in Finnick Odair's eyes because he knew Finnick so well.

"I can't believe Cinna really put you in that thing," his old friend, his old lover, and his hero said. Cinna felt Katniss bristle and he knew she thought Finnick was making fun of her (again) and maybe, just maybe, even took umbrage on Cinna's behalf. But Cinna knew better, and he met Finnick's eyes steadily.

Katniss' words could not have expressed his meaning more clearly.

"He didn't have any choice. President Snow made him."

What Cinna would have wanted to do, more than anything, in that moment, would be to have been able to hug his little sister. Kiss her cheek. Tell her that she turned out _beautiful_and that she was stronger than she thought and that he was sorry. And that he loved her most of all.

"Make him pay for it, okay?" Johanna Mason said in a gruff whisper as she straightened the pearl necklace of a baffled Katniss Everdeen.

* * *

><p>Finnick read a poem for his one true love in the Capitol.<p>

Johanna asserted that no one could be so cruel as to sever such a deep bond.

"Isn't it the most beautiful thing?"

The dress ignited at the hem, fire stripping away white silk and the strings of pearls coated in phosphorus, burnings its way up Katniss' legs and hips and up the long cape sleeves in spirals of flame, tongues of fire licking and blazing until the hideous wedding dress is gone, the cruel power play of Snow over Katniss and Peeta's lives is gone, the dress the Capitol wanted Katniss to wear is gone, and in its place is the radiant Mockingjay, wings spread wide enough to fly.

A small, gracious bow.

The Victors, the Districts, _Panem_stood in an unbroken line across the Capitol, Cinna's flame still blazing.

* * *

><p>Cinna shaded the round circlet of the mockingjay pin in the colors of the sunset, violet for black and goldenrod for white and all the shades of red and pink and green in between, bringing it to its own transcendent life on the page.<p>

He took a deep breath to steady his hand as he dabbed the thin brush of his eyeliner into its gold pot and highlighted the bird's all-knowing eye with his color. He capped the pot again slowly and thought of the first time he wore eyeliner, and the way Johanna had almost wet herself laughing at him before taking pity and showing him how to put it on with a steady hand.

Johanna would be alone.

But Cinna thought of Finnick and all of Annie's pain, and how Peeta would forever be leverage against Katniss Everdeen, and maybe – maybe it would be better for Johanna this way. With no one left to protect, she would be free simply to fight.

Cinna felt his heart lighten considerably as he took up his charcoals for what he knew would be the last time and wrote, _I'm still betting on you._

Just after one o'clock in the morning – in any of the Districts, it would be hours after curfew, but there were no rules in the Capitol – Cinna stood in the door of Johanna's room at the Training center. He held a finger to his lips and indicated the corners of the room, miming towards his ears.

_Bugs?_mouthed Johanna, looking stricken.

Cinna nodded. He glanced over his shoulder and opened his sketchpad.

A drawing of Johanna as a baby, wrinkle-faced and scowling, in a green rompersuit. She had a clump of dirt in her chubby fist on her way to her mouth. She sat in a fussy little Cinna's lap, sunlight and pine-tree shadows freckling his face.

Cinna smiled at Johanna and turned the page.

Johanna's first day of school, frowning in her plaid dress, with bruises and scrapes all over her knees. She clung to Cinna's hand, her grubby fingers all wrapped around Cinna's thumb.

Johanna pursed her lips, her eyes bright.

On the third page, Cinna had drawn Johanna as he saw her: soft-lined but radiant and fierce, with sharp intelligence behind her eyes. She looked just on the precipice of happy, and was unfailingly beautiful. He drew her wearing a shocking bright poppy-red cloak that billowed in the wind and trailed behind her like a great veil.

Johanna opened her mouth, but Cinna chook his head and turned to the last page.

_I love you. Remember. They cannot burn that out._

Johanna stepped forward and grasped his arm. This would be the closest they would ever share again to a hug. "Wait," she whispered, too soft for the bugs.

Johanna riffled through her trunk for a moment and when she stood, a single piece of old, crumbling paper was clutched to her chest. She turned it around and showed Cinna the old drawing, smudged and faded now but still flared with bright orange and red paint made from the autumn leaves outside their window, and the familiar soft line of his drawing hand.

A great castle, taller than the trees and with endless black windows like yawning maws, on fire – spreading in dancing arcs to the trees and village around its stone walls.

_Dear Little Red Cloak, if we burn down the castle, we take the forest with it._

* * *

><p>Still hours before sunrise, Cinna shook Portia awake.<p>

"Breakfast?" he asked, smiling at her early-morning growls. "I'm an awfully good date."

Portia yawned and grabbed the back of his neck, pulling him down so she could kiss him, her mouth sour with sleep and a crease from her pillow crisscrossing her face.

"I just wanted to do that once," she whispered, smiling even through her teary, tired eyes. "Sorry."

"Don't apologize," Cinna said, stroking back her hair. "I'm glad you did. Now get up! I want an omelet and toast and rabbit stew and a slice of chocolate cake. And coffee. I want everything this morning."

The Capitol sky was a darkly neon blue, the bright club lights obscuring the stars and the dark hulking shadows of the mountains. Cinna and Portia sat at one of the small tables at the café, checked tablecloth between them, fingers tangled amiably. They talked about everything that was not the Quell, not Katniss, not Peeta. Not dresses or flames.

Cinna had the strange sense that he was a Tribute in this Quarter Quell, too; like his lifetime had been made up only of moments that led him to this Arena, in this Rebellion, with these former Victors as his allies, and he would die today to protect them, and that was alright. It was peaceful, knowing that his life had been lived well.

The sky looked bluer.

His coffee was smooth and sweet.

The street outside the café was bustling with mockingjays: on bags and shirts and watches and belt buckles and facial tattoos and gaping earrings and manicured nails and every single videoscreen.

"It's time," Portia said finally from beside him. "I'll bet you twenty that they're in the same bed when we get there."

Cinna smiled. "I'll take that bet. Buy me lunch with my twenty?"

Portia kissed his cheek. "Even if you win."

* * *

><p>Cinna braided Katniss' long hair, an old four-strand braid that he'd practiced on Johanna before her first big outing with a boy when she was all of twelve – a summer picnic with a neighbor that lasted all of half an hour before he tried some funny business and Johanna sent him home crying to his mama.<p>

He'd forgotten that until now.

"What do you think?" Katniss asked, holding out her jumpsuit.

Cinna frowned. "I don't know. It will offer little in the way of protection from cold or water."

"Sun?"

"Possibly. If it's been treated." He pulled the small mockingjay pin from his pocket. "Oh, I almost forgot this." He affixed it to Katniss' collar, where cameras couldn't miss it.

Katniss Everdeen took his hand and squeezed it unconsciously, her little fingers curled into his, and Cinna held onto her, too. On their plates across the stretch of veneered flooring, Finnick and Mags were waiting, and Johanna, and Portia with Peeta closest of all. The Capitol liked for it to look like Tributes entered the Arena alone, but Cinna had never felt closer to everyone by whom he was loved. And whom he loved – fiercely enough to set a nation on fire.

Katniss' eyes were locked on Cinna as he helped her to her plate. She shouldn't have stayed up all night with Peeta, he thought; no one could afford for her to be distracted.

"Remember, girl on fire. I'm still betting on you." He kissed her forehead. The glass cylinders around each tribute slid down, locking them into place.

And then came the blow.

And another.

And another.

Cinna saw Finnick trying to break his glass, trying so hard to get free. Katniss reaching for him, wings stretching out. Portia beseeching and forgiving with her big eyes. Johanna's fury was like a rabid animal, a beautiful wild thing that would always resist being tamed.

Before the world went dark, he thought he might have smiled at them all one final time as he thought, in a deep, soaring, plea; a sigh of satisfaction –

_Live happily ever after._


End file.
